


The White Horse

by klmeri



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Dystopia, Friendship, Gen, Mystery, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 96,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klmeri/pseuds/klmeri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk was a strange man. A silent man. No one knew much about him or, if they did, were not willing to say what they did know, especially to the town’s newest magical occupant. Not that Leonard McCoy cared. He had an old curse to track down and unravel by the year's end. Meanwhile a killer was tracking him. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The muse has been very wishy-washy the last couple of months and then it came up with this frightening premise. Because the story might take some serious world-building (and trauma), I might as well post it here for people to bookmark and follow with ease.

_Sept 1997_

They waited until the fourth child had drowned before sending someone to fetch the mage. This displeased the federal investigator, which showed prominently in the flattening of his mouth and the flare of his nostrils. No Fed ever readily agreed to involve the Occult; they seemed naturally adverse to intermingling, like oil and water. Next to the investigator, the hard-faced man wearing the badge of the local sheriff pretended he had planned all along to bring the outsider in. In his thinking, the lie was better than an admission of defeat. 

Within the hour, their last resort was picking his way through the reeds around the lake. A twenty-something deputy hovered several feet behind, looking concerned at the unsteady gait and thick mud, but somehow the old man always managed to catch himself with his crooked walking cane. 

Once the mage was within earshot, he told the sheriff, "Took you long enough. I've been waiting since Tuesday."

"I don't got time for complaints" came the even response. "Four children're dead. Walked into the lake 'n drowned themselves."

The mage swiveled his head away from the crowd of people and _hmm_ ed under his breath as he stared out over the water. "If you believed that, Sheriff, you wouldn't have had me brought here."

"Then who drowned 'em?"

The old man lifted a hand and traced a shape in the air. It looked like a gathering of dust-motes and faded too quickly. Then he pulled a coin from a pocket, burnished but plain-looking and not anything the others had seen before, and tossed it to the ground. For an instant the lake and its surroundings were quiet. Then the crickets and frogs resumed the chorus to their song.

"Not a who, but a what," the mage imparted, tucking a long grey sleeve back over the exposed wrist which bore the mark of his kind.

All expression vanished from the investigator's face. He flipped close a small leather-bound notepad, which he had not bothered to write in since the mage's arrival, and headed toward an unmarked sedan. The sheriff watched the agent sequester himself inside the vehicle and take out a wireless phone. No one mentioned coaxing him out again. 

The sheriff gave his attention back to the old man. "No riddles this time. What do you think it is?"

"Kelpie. And I don't think, I know. Have known for a while. You should have asked me sooner."

"What's a kelpie?" queried the youngest of the crowd after exchanging a glance with a partner.

"Spirit, waterhorse," said the mage. "Someone you don't want to meet by moonlight on a lakeshore."

The sheriff crossed his arms, and his blue eyes glinted. "We combed the area. No hoof-prints."

The mage gestured at the ground with the end of his walking cane. "Why would there be any? You think I deal in things done by mortals? Your murderer is a supernatural. You'll never know it's there until it has a hold on you."

"How the hell am I supposed to stop it from killing folk, then?"

The lake reeds swayed through no discernible breeze. The mage, though he did not change expression, grew enigmatic. "I might know the answer to that. But tell me, what do I get for my trouble?"

The two men eyed each other, both well-versed in keeping their secrets tightly cocooned, until the sheriff gave a reluctant grunt and conceded the battle. "What do you want?" 

He was beckoned closer by a finger, the owner of whom cast a pointed look at the other listening ears. With a wave of his hand that wasn't to be disobeyed, the sheriff sent his deputies along toward the row of unoccupied squad cars. Some tromped their feet as they left, clearly disappointed there was to be no master trick to conjure the murderer out of thin air.

"What do you want?" he repeated once he was facing the water, alone at the side of the mage. In the middle of the lake, its surface rippled, glimmered, then grew still again. Even touched by tragedy it was still beautiful. 

"It's been said those who turn a blind eye to sin are just as evil as those who commit it."

"My patience is limited, old man. What do you want? I won't ask again."

"A blind eye."

"To?"

The mage leaned forward, as if he wished to contemplate something closely. "To a crime of my own."

The sheriff took the answer in stride, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets before he spoke. "Depends. What's the crime?"

"That's an answer neither of us know, Sheriff. I haven't committed it yet." The mage gave a little nod to the side but whatever stood there, if it nodded back, was not visible to an ordinary man's eyes. "Just a precaution, you see. Can a bargain be struck between us?"

"I want this thing stopped before another body is found. There's a pattern. It happens—"

"Every third day, and only two remain. I told you, I know. But first you must give me my answer, Sheriff."

He blew out a breath. "Yes, we have a deal."

"Twice more, if you please."

The sheriff looked grim for a second but repeated his agreement two additional times. Then he demanded, "Is that all?"

"There is nothing to fear. A bargain could not exist if both sides were not beholden to their promises. I will rid you of your killer. Now we should discuss the bait to be prepared."

"What? You said nothing about bait."

The mage was amused. "Did you believe I would order it to come and die? Don't be a fool. Magic knows magic. It will never appear to me, and there is no power I hold to make it do so. A lure is required," he explained. "Younger than twelve and male. Arrange it."

"Why don't you ask for the moon, too?" the sheriff snapped, sounding jarred from his indifference for the first time. "I can't just take somebody's kid!"

"That concern is not mine."

"What if he dies?"

Briefly, the mage fell silent, perhaps to consider what he might say. "It is not my intention to let the child die. However you must also understand, if the boy sees magic, he cannot live either—not in the way he lived before."

"What does that mean?"

The old man leaned against his cane. "It is not magic-users who wish to live in secret but magic which lives secretly. It wants a price to be called forth. What form that price takes or what the magic will demand, I cannot tell you. Only know such will happen, and to the child." He studies his companion closely. "So... does this make the decision easier for you? Who will you use?"

The sheriff turned away from the edge of the lake, paler than he was at the start of the conversation. "There's, shit... There is one."

"Yes," said the mage knowingly. "His name?"

"You—you have to promise no one, _no one_ ever finds out why he was here." The man swallowed hard before asking, "Will he remember, after?" 

"The name, Franklin," commanded the mage.

Franklin (called Frank by family and friends) closed his eyes. "Jimmy."

The old man nodded once, sharply. "A good choice, if a dangerous one. Your sister's child."

It took more than one try, but Frank finally trapped his expression behind its usual mask. "He won't remember." This time, there was no question in his voice.

"The memory of a child is fickle," agreed the mage, beginning to limp through the mud back the way he came. The reeds swayed. "At sunset in two days' time, leave the boy here. That will be enough."

The sheriff did not watch the mage go because he couldn't. His mind was already too occupied.


	2. Part One

When Leonard was seven, he lost all his friends. He could remember the exact moment it happened, just as he remembered in stark detail the night his mother died. He hadn't understood at the time why the other children looked at him like they were scared or why the adults would no longer meet his eyes. Even his pretty teacher, whom he admired as young boys are wont to do, seemed different as she led him off the playground. They walked to the elementary school's clinic in silence, Leonard afraid to talk because he thought he'd done something wrong and Ms. Naomi unable to talk, it seemed, because whenever she looked down at him, her chin trembled the way Leonard's did when he wanted to cry. Before she left him alone with the school nurse and a grim-faced man in a suit he knew was the vice principal, she knelt in front of him and said she was sorry. The apology frightened him more than the silence, so he asked for his parents. They were on the way, he was told.

Leonard stayed in that clinic for hours. Even when his mother came sailing in, hair as wild as it always was and eyes flashing, nobody let him leave immediately. They said, "Tell us again, Leonard. Tell us what you did to that Jenkins boy."

Leonard hadn't done anything bad, but they made it feel like he had.

Two days later, his parents told him he couldn't go to that school anymore. His mother raged about it and called everyone, including Ms. Naomi, bastards. Leonard's father didn't say anything but Leonard thought maybe, on the inside, his father was calling them bad names too. 

A week after that, they took him to a building in another city that was bigger than the town library and scarier-looking too. Two nurses held him down while a man in a white coat (Leonard couldn't think of him as a doctor, _couldn't_ ) burned his arm. Leonard screamed. Then he had cried and promised them he would never, never, never do what he'd done again. They wrapped up their handiwork and sent him back to his parents in the lobby. He cried into his mother's shirt all the way home, and she cried into his hair.

A Mark, they called it. Because of what he was, he had to carry it the rest of his life. He wasn't allowed to cover it up, he couldn't lie about it, and if someone demanded to see it, he had to let them. For a long time, he was ashamed that he had been Marked. 

Now, he was just angry. Leonard knew he'd be angry until the day he died.

* * *

  


_Oct 2012_

" _Hey, mister!_ " 

Leonard wiped the sweat off his brow, planted the head of his shovel into the ground and used it to stand on. The moment his head cleared the lip of the hole, a light shone in his eyes.

"What the fuck," snapped a voice, "aren't you done yet?"

"Get that fuckin' flashlight outta my face!" Leonard snarled back. Once he wasn't blinded, he got a good grip on the topsoil and dragged himself out of the hole. " _Goddamn_ ," he said, rolling onto his back. The sky above was too cloudy to get a good look at the moon. A moment later he sat up. "I guess it's deep enough."

Leonard and the young man with the flashlight peered contemplatively down into the grave.

"If this doesn't work," pointed out McCoy's companion, "we are so screwed."

Leonard scrubbed his dirty palms against his jeans. "Tell me about it." Reaching around to his back pocket out of habit, he remembered he'd left his cigarettes in the truck. "What time is it?"

"Half past."

That much closer to midnight. "Let's get this done." 

He went for his backpack left by a big limb that had fallen from the ancient oak reaching out over the fence. There, the whiff of rot was strong enough it overpowered the familiarity of freshly turned earth. Leonard wrinkled his nose and opened the backpack. As he dug through it, something cold crawled along his spine. 

A warning, he figured, or just a curious touch from the dryad dreaming inside the tree. He didn't really know; and, in order to get paid for this night's work, he didn't have the time to care.

"What happens if we don't finish by midnight?" asked the flashlight-bearer, beginning to shift nervously on his feet now that they were on track to perform the ritual.

"Tomorrow's All Hallows' Eve. What do you think will happen?"

"Fuck if I know! Like... like zombies'll rise outta the ground or some shit?"

Leonard snorted and finally found what he was looking for. He sat back on his haunches and with his thumb flicked his lighter to life. Over the tiny orange flame, he observed the pale face watching him so intently. "This ain't a horror movie. Now go stand to the side but make sure you shine the light where I can see what the fuck I'm doin'."

"Don't you need my help?"

"What I need is for you to stay out of the way." People who'd never seen this sort of thing before tended to get spooked, which in turn tended to make them too stupid to live, like tripping headfirst into an open grave during an incantation. Leonard had no tolerance for fools unless it was to make ends meet.

Wordlessly, the young man held the flashlight aloft for Leonard.

Leonard took a bundle of cloth from his backpack and unrolled it at the edge of the grave.

" _Fuck_."

"Shut up," Leonard said mildly as he lifted free a skull missing its jawbone. "Ugly fucker," he muttered under his breath then tossed it into the hole. He threw in a couple of ribs and a femur after it.

"The spell is gonna to do what it's supposed to, right?"

"I told you to shut up!" snapped Leonard. "This is curse work. If I can't concentrate, I might turn the curse on _you_."

Blessed silence. Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose once and went back to work. In the end, he got through the whole thing under twenty minutes and thought it still looked pretty authentic. But his client just stared at him after it was over, underwhelmed by the lack of the supernatural phenomena. Leonard had warned him the first time they'd met he wasn't a one-man magic sideshow. He guessed now the idiot believed him.

Leonard met that stare with an even one of his own until he was grudgingly handed the second half of his payment.

"How will I know if it really worked?" The people who hired Leonard always, _always_ asked that question afterwards. This one was no exception.

Leonard finished counting the cash before he tossed his shovel at the young man's feet. "You won't until you cover that hole up. I'd get it done 'fore the sun comes up, otherwise somebody's gonna nail your ass for ripping up private property."

The guy blinked at him stupidly. Leonard closed up his backpack and started to walk away.

_Five, four, three, two—_

"Where the fuck are you going!" came the uncertain cry at McCoy's back. A bird sleeping high up in the branches of the oak tree startled and flapped its wings.

Leonard's mouth quirked at one end. He never slowed his pace. The first thing he did when he reached his truck was tuck a cigarette between his lips in celebration. By dawn, he'd be three counties gone and if the idiot ever figured out the spell had been a scam... well, Leonard wasn't likely to be back this way any time soon.

He took a long drag on the cigarette before stubbing it out in a paper cup filled with other partially smoked cigarette butts. He made the same promise to himself he always did after: that he'd quit before he was home again. For some reason, that promise never held water more than a few days. 

At the nearest station Leonard ditched his prepaid phone, bought a tank of gas, and a few bottles of water. After that, he simply drove. An hour became two, nearly three. The roads were almost empty of traffic. He skirted Augusta by an old route (he loved the Savannah by moonlight; it was a beautiful thing) and was heading southwest into Georgia state in no time, feeling a little nostalgic as he always did when passing through. 

Then the call came, cutting abruptly into the silence of the cab with an enthusiastic cry from Winnie the Pooh's Tigger, a ringtone Leonard had eventually gotten himself used to. He pulled over to the shoulder of the road and searched for his personal cell phone in the mess of fast food wrappers littering the floorboard. Since it was still dark in Mississippi, there was only one person who could be calling him.

Leonard found the phone on the fourth ring. He answered it with "Dad?"

"Where are you?"

The way his father sounded immediately caused Leonard's heart to lodge itself in his throat. "Georgia. Joanna?"

"Asleep. Mazie's watchin' her. Len..." His father's voice had grown very soft, as it always did when delivering bad news.

Leonard closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the seat, remembering the cold that had touched his spine earlier, which he'd dismissed. Not a warning, then. 

Somehow he managed to find the words for what his heart already knew. They came out close to a whisper. "Gramps is gone."

His father was quiet for a long time. Leonard was grateful for that. 

At last, he dragged in a breath just for the noise it made. "I can be home by lunch. Don't—don't tell Jo yet. I'll do it." He paused. "Will you be okay?"

"Drive careful" was the only thing his father said and hung up.

Leonard dropped the cell phone into the seat beside him. Unfolding the envelope of cash from his jacket pocket, he considered what he had left. It'd be enough for gas for the truck and coffee for himself. Maybe for a dress for Jo to wear to the funeral. He'd planned to make more so he could have more to give but life, he knew, didn't always see fit to follow along with best-laid plans.

 _Ah, Gramps_ , Leonard thought, heart heavy. He shifted the old pickup into drive and pulled back onto the highway. Focusing on distant city lights helped him ignore the way his hands shook on the wheel. It was harder to ignore the roiling of his stomach.

His grandfather had believed it was tragedy that defined people's lives, which shaped them into who they were meant to be. He'd said so after Leonard's mother died, after the arrest when he was fifteen, and after the coldly polite letter that tore Leonard's hope in half: _"Boy, it's the righteous man who comes out of the fire stronger than he was._ "

Leonard hated hearing that. It left him with a bad feeling he couldn't shake, and it always made him wonder what kind of fire would try to burn him next.

At that thought, his wrist ached from a long-ago pain. As Leonard often did, he traced the raised skin there with an absent mind. Oddly enough, it kept his grief at bay. 

He was in Mississippi by noon.

* * *

  


"Daddy!"

The little girl flying down the front porch steps was taller than his knees. She had had a growth spurt in his absence. Leonard scooped his daughter up anyway and let her cling to his neck, rumbling, "Hey there, darlin'."

"You're back!" Everything about her was exuberant.

Leonard's right hand clutched at the back of her overalls, and for a moment he battled with himself about letting her go. In the end, his own body won out.

He set her down on her feet with a dramatic groan. "My god, girl, you're too heavy! What has Grandpa been feeding you?"

Joanna grinned up at him. "He says you ate more at my age. He says you were fat!"

The screen door squealed on its hinges. Leonard looked up to see his father move toward the top step of the porch and protested loudly, "I was not! I was pleasantly rotund."

"Fat like a little piglet," countered his father. "Amelia had a time finding you clothes that fit right." He paused and leaned against the porch post, gaze landing on the back of Joanna's head. "Your father grew out of it, though. By the time he hit grade school he was as skinny as every other boy who thought running was better than walking somewhere."

At the mention of school, Leonard swallowed down bitterness. He hadn't stayed in grade school long, that was for certain. A sharpness in his old man's eyes indicated he knew what Leonard was thinking.

Leonard smiled at his daughter, asking like any good father, "Are you minding your teachers, Jo?"

She gave a firm nod. "Yes, sir. I'm the smartest in my class too! That's what Ms. Thompson thinks."

He tweaked one of her pigtails and turned her towards the house. "What makes you believe that?"

"Well, why wouldn't she?"

"True," he conceded then laughed, amused at the way she puffed up with pride at his agreement.

Leonard hesitated on the porch even as Joanna skipped into the house.

"Joanna, go get your father a glass of tea. He looks beat to the bone," ordered her grandfather.

The little girl ran for the kitchen with a shout of "Okay!"

Leonard looked at him once Joanna had vanished from sight. "You all right?"

His father nodded, kept his voice low so their conversation wouldn't carry. "I am. You know he wouldn't have gone if it wasn't time. Your Grandmother McCoy always said the men of the family are three kinds of stubborn like that."

They made for a set of rocking chairs. Leonard's father sat down. Leonard knew if he took a seat too, in the next moment he'd fall asleep. The better option was leaning against the porch railing. Leonard crossed his arms. 

"I got the call from the home late last night."

"About eleven-thirty," Leonard guessed.

His father studied him for a moment before agreeing. They didn't talk about how Leonard had known. "Passed in his sleep. He... looked at peace, when I saw 'im."

Willing his tears to stay in his eyes, Leonard fixed his gaze on the boards of the house. The siding needed to be re-painted. He'd do it before he left again.

"Have you talked to anybody yet?"

"No, except to call Whittaker's about an appointment. They took care of your grandmother, too."

Leonard hadn't known that, nor had he known his paternal grandmother. She had died before he was born. "I'll go with you, or I can take care of the arrangements myself if you aren't up to it."

"Leonard..."

"I know," he said. "We don't have the money."

"Cremation's cheaper."

Leonard shook his head. "That plot next to Grandmother is his. You know that's what he wanted. He wouldn't have bought it otherwise."

"There's still the casket and the obituary. The viewing, the church service. Maybe the reception after. Even a fee to dig the hole."

Leonard had a brief image of what he'd been doing last night. He tucked that thought away guiltily. "We can have it graveside. If people want to come over after, they'll come here anyway." He glanced down the road. "I'm surprised no one's been here to see you yet."

"Neighbors already brought food. I told 'em Joanna didn't know yet, so they agreed to come back later."

 _Speak of the devil_ , Leonard thought as Joanna came out of the house. A quick glance at his father, and they were in mutual agreement to discuss the details of the funeral later. Leonard thanked his daughter for his drink. His first sip left him surprised. "Huh, this is different. Good."

"I put mint in it," Joanna told him.

Leonard's father stared down at his own glass of tea with a nonplussed expression. "The girl likes to experiment." The man might have muttered something about how things were just fine the way they'd always been.

There was a story there, Leonard could tell. He draped his arm over Joanna's shoulders and hugged her close to him. "So what else can you make?" he asked her.

The child lit up and proceeded to tell him. He let her talk, wanting to savor this moment of happiness. She'd cry once he told her about her great-grandfather.

And then she'd ask him why he couldn't fix it, because he was her father, he was special, and he fixed her whenever she needed it. He'd help anybody who asked, even if they feared what he could do as soon as that help was given.

So Leonard let her talk to her heart's content until a car came up the long dirt road. Then he gently steered her into the house to explain about death, and left his father to greet the visitors bearing food and condolences.

* * *

  


The funeral was a short affair that happened two days later. Leonard wore the suit he'd bought for Joanna's mother's funeral but hadn't had the chance to wear because in the end Jocelyn's family hadn't wanted him there. It was snug in some places and loose in others. He supposed he'd changed enough over the years for that to be so.

Joanna held his hand the entire time. She had wanted to be nearest the unadorned pine casket as the preacher prayed, not understanding why her father had an aversion to being in plain sight of all the mourners. Not that it mattered. Eyes followed him wherever he went.

When the decision had been made to leave Georgia, Leonard's grandfather had welcomed his son and grandson with open arms and scorned the gossip that came with them. His Gramps had loved him and had made it publicly known on more than one occasion he would never turn his back on family. That was the kind of man he had been.

Caught up in those memories, Leonard's eyes burned the entire day, but he didn't once cry. Joanna didn't cry either. He loved her even more for her strength. 

Funny how, he sometimes thought, that for all that his family had stood with him over the years and never abandoned him, it was this small child who gave him a reason to be better than his worst. He couldn't imagine himself being strong without her. It made no difference that, because of what he was, he could claim no paternal rights. They were father and daughter. Leonard knew he would fight the world if he had to in order to protect her.

When the time came, that love was what drove him to Iowa to find the curse-maker responsible for killing her.


	3. Part Two

_June 2013_  


While Leonard watched his daughter sleep, he felt like his world was ending. He reached for her hand for comfort, but the man occupying the corner of the room shifted in warning so instead Leonard pretended to straighten the blanket over the bed as if that had been his intention all along. The fact that he couldn't do something as simple as have physical contact with her made his gut burn with anger. But if he wanted to keep his visitor's pass, he had to abide by the rules. 

Doctors in general were wary whenever one of Leonard's kind encroached on their territory. Him in particular they didn't just feel wariness over; that was what the unrelenting stare of the security guard meant. If Leonard tried his particular brand of magic on his daughter, he would be dragged out. Likely then, as soon as he hit pavement, the police would come to arrest him. That's the way the system worked.

Only to Leonard, it made no sense. In a hospital of the sick and dying, he couldn't help. If his particular gift was something other than what it was, he might have had some understanding for the way things were. It didn't make sense to have a magic-user—a mage—working a spell over a patient's bed unless the ailment itself was magical. That sort of thing, in an atmosphere reeking of desperation, caused panic, created chaos. The medical staff couldn't concentrate on fighting for their patients if they were too busy fighting magic which ran rampant and did more harm than good.

But Leonard's ability worked only on the non-magical; its purpose was to heal the wrongness in the body. He had learned that much from his research nearly a decade ago. He had known it instinctively for far longer. 

Why then couldn't he help Joanna? At the very least, lessen her pain?

The answer was simple: the Marked broke the natural laws. They held power in a way ordinary men did not, and that made them a threat to be contained. They couldn't be given too much or treated too kindly for fear of the advantages they already had.

The world's view was all a great big fucking joke—and Leonard hated it. The only thing he hated more was himself.

He shoved a hand through his unkempt hair and closed his eyes, listening to the steady beat of Joanna's heart monitor. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept more than a few hours in a row. Sleep seemed unimportant. Most things did, except this awful guilt he carried.

How could he have been so stupid? So arrogant? So complacent?

He had been treating the symptoms, the doctors told him, but not the cause. Every time he thought he was curing the flu, or settling an upset stomach, or healing her skin because she bruised so easily—he was putting a band-aid on a bigger problem and turning a blind eye to the truth. He should have taken her to a certified practitioner.

And now, for Joanna, it was too late.

The chemotherapy wasn't working the way they hoped it would. She might have had a better chance a year ago. If the lead time had been two years, maybe, they could have positively affected the bone marrow's white blood cell production. Now it came down to a transplant. Leonard wasn't a match. His father wasn't, either, or both of Jocelyn's parents or her sister whom Leonard had spent two weeks begging to take a blood test. A sibling would be was the best chance Joanna had for a donor but she had none, and Jocelyn was dead.

It felt as if everything had turned against them. One moment he had a happy child proudly showing him her artwork from school, the next moment she was telling him not to worry from a hospital bed, despite the pallor of her face, sunken eyes and thin limbs. Between the two of them, Joanna was still the stronger one. He saw it in the way she carefully hid her fear, how she didn't cry after losing her hair and accepted her visitors with a good nature. Leonard himself was slowly breaking into pieces, and he didn't know if he could be put back together again.

It was not just the fear of losing his daughter destroying him but the guilt and the fact everyone knew he was guilty. The doctor who gave the prognosis had had no sympathy for Leonard. The look in the man's eyes had accused Leonard of his crime, saying, _Your little girl's gonna die because you thought you knew better than us._

And he was right: Leonard didn't know anything. He didn't know a damn thing, because he'd told the agent who had come recruiting him for some classified government program in his early twenties to fuck off, because he'd hated that Joanna had to live with the stigma of having him for a father and shielded her as best he could, because he'd wanted to shun the world for shunning him. He couldn't blame his actions—or lack thereof—on being too poor to afford healthcare. That blame belonged ultimately to his bad judgment.

 _Too late_.

Leonard launched himself out of the chair and into a small private bathroom in time to throw up the coffee he had for breakfast. Bile scalded the back of his throat, and sweat ran down his face. Eventually, after several long minutes of dry heaving, his stomach quit cramping enough that he could stand up. He washed the taste of vomit out of his mouth. The guard was a shadow in the doorway, but Leonard doubted the man cared that he was sick, only that he didn't start drawing runes all over the bathroom mirror.

Leonard pushed past the asshole and wobbled back to the chair he'd abandoned. He slumped into it and leaned forward to rest his head on the edge of Joanna's bed.

"Sit up," the guard ordered.

Leonard drew in his shoulders but he sat up, wiping at his watery eyes with the back of his hand. His voice cracked when he said, "Don't watch me."

But the guard did. Leonard cried anyway.

* * *

  


In a matter of months, David McCoy Jr. had aged well past sixty. Mazie Lane, the woman he'd paid to keep his house for going on nearly two decades, feared for him. She feared for his boy, too. Neither man would recover if the girl child was lost.

The hospital doctor said it was leukemia. Mazie couldn't believe it. It wasn't that she had no faith in medical science; it was that she knew too much about the McCoy family. Magic, especially bad magic, had a way of disguising itself.

She tried to talk to David about it, but even broken-hearted he was too stubborn to listen.

"It's cancer, Mazie. Some things in this world are crueler than any spell." He sagged in the kitchen chair while she stood by the stove, looking close to tears. "There's nothin' to be done."

That made her angry. She twisted the dishtowel in her hands. "Is that the way you felt about your wife?"

David's head came up. "Don't you bring her into this."

"Why not?" the woman countered. "You know it was the curse, same as—"

"NO!" David's hands came down on the kitchen table like a thunderclap. 

Mazie jumped a little in response, but after a moment lifted her chin in defiance. "Your father believed."

"My father needed a reason to excuse his mistakes. If he'd listened to my mother, she wouldn't have gone after him and she wouldn't have died."

"Fine, you can blame your daddy all you want," Mazie told him, "but that don't change facts. Your mama was cursed for a short life the day she wed into the McCoy family." She put her back to him, saying as if it was the end of the discussion, "I guess you got a point after all. Nothing can be done to stop a curse so black."

A tense silence hung between them. She re-arranged the bacon strips in the frying pan while she waited for David to find his voice again. Eventually he did.

"I've never stopped being afraid. That's the curse my father passed down to me on the day I was old enough to understand our family history. When I held my son for the first time, I promised myself I'd never give that burden to him. Can't you understand?"

"Yes," she said, "but, David... haven't you wondered why Leonard's different than the rest of us? Maybe he's the magic God gave you to fight back with."

"I wouldn't say that outside this house, Mazie. Other people call that heresy."

"Other people can keep themselves ignorant of the way the world is if it makes 'em feel safer. I know better, and so do you. You gotta tell him."

"I can't."

"The choice ain't yours anymore," Mazie stated, words firm but tone gentle. "This is about his baby. He'd never forgive you if you didn't give him the option, 'n you'd never forgive yourself if she died without every chance you could give her to live." She took the skillet off the stove. "Food's ready. Grab yourself a plate and eat something."

"I was heading to the hospital. Len's been there three days in a row. He needs a break."

Mazie felt she could concede a little now that she had said what was on her mind. "It won't hurt you to have a small bite while you get ready. I can wrap up the rest for y'all to have once you're there."

"Bless you, I'll do that." David stood up from the table and went for the bread box. Though he moved with tiredness in his bones, the set of his shoulders seemed less defeated.

Mazie breathed a sigh of relief. She knew in her heart there was a way to save little Joanna, just as she knew Leonard McCoy wouldn't give up until he found that way. Maybe in the process he could save the family who had yet to be born from heartache, too.

* * *

  


Joanna was still asleep. The treatments wore her down more quickly these days. Leonard had been dozing by her bedside when his father arrived with a paper bag in one hand and a small book in the other. He rubbed at his eyes as he sat up and said, "Hey."

Leonard's father lifted the paper bag. "Here, Mazie made breakfast."

"I had something."

Tugging the rolling tray away from the wall, his father put the food on it and pushed it towards Leonard's chair. He scolded Leonard mildly, "Don't lie to your father, boy. You can't live on coffee. Have some breakfast."

It did smell good, and Leonard's stomach seemed to like the idea even though it had rejected the coffee earlier on. He un-wrapped an egg and bacon sandwich. It was still slightly warm. "Thanks," he murmured after taking a large bite.

His father sank into a chair opposite him and watched him eat. Wordlessly, Leonard set the second sandwich in front of the man. His father picked it up and slowly peeled back its foil.

"There's somethin' I want to talk to you about, Len," he said to his son, "but not here."

Leonard paused mid-chew. "Okay?"

David McCoy sighed and lowered the uneaten sandwich in his hand. He set the small book he'd brought on the tray between them. The stained cover bore no title or author. Leonard could smell its age. He picked it up.

"Is this leather?" he asked, turning it over. A page slipped out and drifted to the tabletop. Leonard stared at the unfamiliar handwriting and inkblots.

"It's your great-grandfather's journal. He wrote it as a boy. You'll want to read it after..." His father glanced in the direction of the granite-faced guard. "...we talk."

Leonard understood. He set the journal down and finished his sandwich. In silence, his father did the same. Then they asked a nurse to check in on Jo, and left the children's ward. The guard followed them as far as the parking garage. Leonard shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and asked his father, "Where to?"

David pointed toward the small park across the street maintained by the hospital. They took the footbridge from the parking garage to get there. Leonard had a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach as soon as he stepped onto the grass. He grabbed his father's arm to delay their trek toward a pair of benches under a half-grown cypress.

"Dad, what's this about?"

"We should sit down first."

"No."

His father looked at him strangely. "Why?"

Leonard's gaze roamed the park. "I don't know." He blew out a breath before amending, "I'm tired of sitting." Then he looked at his father. "And if it's bad news, I'd rather take it standing up." With that declaration came the fleeting memory of when he had first heard the word 'cancer' in conjunction with his daughter's name and how the world had fuzzed out to grey. He had wound up on his knees, just trying to breathe.

"It's not... bad or good, Len. It's just what it is. It's whatever you decide to do with it."

That settled Leonard for some reason. He nodded for his father to continue.

The man studied him. "What do you feel about this place?"

The question was unexpected. Leonard took a moment to consider it. "You would think there's a kind of calm here, with the way it looks, but there isn't," he answered. "It's steeped in sadness, like people come here to make peace with what they're going through and can't."

"There is no peace to be made with loss."

"No," Leonard agreed, swallowing hard. "Why did you ask me that question?"

"Because it's not something I'm capable of answerin'. Only you can."

He knew his father wasn't trying to be unkind. Nonetheless, he said, "You don't have to remind me."

A hand settled on Leonard's shoulder, squeezed it gently. "Son, I know I haven't said the words outright, but I've never been afraid of what you are—and I've never regretted it."

Leonard struggled to contain the emotion building inside him. "How can you say that?" he almost demanded. "The way we've had to live, the way Mom died, Joanna—" His voice caught.

But the other man just shook his head. "None of those things are your fault. You can't control the actions of others any more than you can control God's will."

The pain that struck Leonard, and the disbelief, stole his breath. "God's will? Are you—you can't—it _isn't_ God's will for my daughter to die!"

"I wasn't talking about Joanna," his father countered sharply. "I meant you."

"Fuck God, then!" Leonard spat. "If there is a fuckin' God, he should have had the mercy to make me like everybody else."

For the first time in months, David McCoy looked frustrated with his son. "Leonard."

That tone of voice meant _stop it_ but Leonard didn't want to stop. "Did I ask to be this way, Dad? Did I ask to be treated like shit— _fuck_ , like I'm not even a human being?"

His father grabbed him by both shoulders.

"I can't get a job, I can't raise my own kid—" Angry tears filled his eyes. "—I can't even hold her hand when she's dyin'. So don't tell me God did me a service!" He would have said more, but in the next second he was in the circle of his father's arms and he couldn't speak.

"I know," his father said, "I know it hurts. Oh, my boy, I know, but you've got to hear me out. Forget God for a moment. I think, no, I _believe_ you have a gift. That's why I never told you to hide it or forbade you from using it. You heal people, Len. I can't think of a better use of magic than that. You're the very reason I can't accept it as evil—not because you're my son but because you can do something with it that is good."

Leonard choked out, "Then why can't I heal her? Why?"

"Maybe you could... maybe you're being prevented from it by something more powerful, more determined than you are."

Leonard tried to pull back to see his father's face but the man wouldn't let him go. "Dad, what're you saying?"

"Hush a second, son, 'n let me talk. There's a story—no, a _truth_ I have to tell you. It's all in that journal, too, when you're up to reading it. I always wanted it to be a fantasy, just some fairytale made up by a child, but now I have to hope it's not. For Joanna's sake."

Leonard quieted and listened.

And his father told him everything.

* * *

  


Afterward, Leonard asked for time alone to think, and his father returned to Joanna's bedside without him. The early morning air began to warm up as Leonard restlessly circled the small park. He smoked through three cigarettes and hid the butts in a napkin in his pocket. Eventually, he had turned the story over in his head enough times that he began to believe it.

Had Jocelyn's death been part of the curse on his family? She'd suffered an aneurysm during childbirth. Everyone had been shocked that such a young healthy woman had died so suddenly when there were no signs of complications. Her parents had wanted to blame Leonard somehow, to blame the baby too because it was Leonard's, but there had been no proof. Leonard had wanted Jocelyn to live like everyone else, even if he hadn't been in love with her. She had promised to raise their daughter and, law be damned, let him help her do it.

He just couldn't imagine that a curse would have struck her down like that. It would be like striking a stranger. There were rules magic had to follow regardless of how wily it was. That was why the wording which brought a spell to fruition mattered so much.

At least, he knew that in theory. Leonard didn't practice spells himself because he didn't see the point. His ability didn't need words. He guessed that meant he would have to find someone who did if he wanted to understand the spell his father remarked was in the journal.

That spell, that curse...

Joanna was the most important girl in his life, the person to whom he'd given his heart. Before her, he had never had plans to give it to anyone. He'd briefly considered it with Jocelyn, because he was lonely, but decided affection was all he could manage. 

If the person who had enacted revenge on the McCoy's so long ago wanted every man in the family to suffer the loss of love, it made sense that Joanna was a target. Curses didn't know or care about age, or relationship, unless it had been specified. This one would work based on emotion.

Undoing the curse might be futile, Leonard thought, but at least it was a purpose, a goal. Otherwise, he could only wait and pray, and he was useless at both. 

Leonard went to the nearest tree, closed his eyes, and put his bare palm against it. _What do I do?_ he asked.

Tree spirits were by and large simple, often reticent. Their world had been gridded, measured, planned, and the earth so buried nothing could bloom in secret. Still, he hoped for an answer because Mother Nature always seemed wiser than people.

Sadness whispered back to him, making his palm tingle against the bark. Leonard withdrew his hand, disappointed. Of course no guidance could be given to him, not unless he had something to give in return.

But as he walked away, he realized if Joanna died, he and the spirits in this park would have an overwhelming sadness in common. Maybe that was reason enough to go on a fool's errand.

* * *

  


With the usual shadow tailing him, Leonard sought out Joanna's doctor. The man was in his office, he was told, so that's where he tried to go. The corridor he was on took a turn away from the elevators to cross a designated waiting area and lose itself at the end of a walkway that bridged two buildings. Leonard stopped there and admitted he had no idea where he was. "If you're going to follow me," he told his shadow, "the least you could do is be useful."

The guard gave him a begrudging look before taking the lead. They arrived at their destination without mishap. Luckily Leonard didn't have to fight with an assistant for an appointment to see Joanna's doctor because the man, about Leonard's age, was standing outside his office talking to someone. 

Leonard went straight to him and interrupted the conversation. "I gotta speak to you."

"I'll be down to check on Joanna this afternoon, Mr. McCoy. You can talk to me then."

"How long does she have?" he asked. "I know you told me before, but things seem worse."

The man seemed to realize Leonard wasn't going to go away. He dismissed his companion. "You're a very rude person, McCoy."

"I give what I get," replied Leonard flatly. "How long?"

"Without the bone marrow transplant, a few more months; a little longer if the next round of radiation treatments can slow the spread of the cancer. But in all likelihood, she'll be gone before the new year." 

The asshole didn't sound sorry about it. Leonard could have punched him, but instead he turned away, saying, "I want you to know two things, Clay: first, the fact that you feel nothing about one of your patients dying tells me what kind of man you are, and, second, if you think you're better than me, you sure as hell haven't proved it." Something inside Leonard settled as he spoke. "I'm not going to let my girl leave this world so easily. Because of that, I might be gone for a while, so I don't have a choice but to trust you to look out for her. You do that, Clay. You'd better."

"I told you to call me Dr. Treadway," the other man snapped. Then his eyes narrowed. "I didn't think you were willing to leave her. Why? What're you planning?"

Leonard didn't rise to the bait. "That's none of your business. Just do your damn job. If not for my sake, then for Jocelyn's. She would have wanted her child to live."

Clay's nostrils flared and the lines about his mouth became strained. "Fuck you."

With a nasty smile, Leonard retorted back, "Fuck you too." When he walked away, it was with the sense he had achieved what he wanted. Clay would fight to keep Joanna alive until Leonard returned just to spite him—and to give Leonard more time to dig himself a little deeper into his own grave. Such was the power of hatred. In that, at least, they understood each other completely.

Now he only had to accomplish the hard part: telling his daughter he would be gone without explaining why. He would promise he would be back just as soon as he could and have to hope someday she forgave him. 

But even if she didn't, saving her would be worth whatever price he ended up paying.


	4. Part Three

_July 2013_  


With the practice of magic outlawed on the streets, there weren't a lot of places for Leonard to go if he wanted something more dangerous than a parlor trick. For near a month, he made his way from one side of the Mississippi to the other hunting for the right kind of magic. Some Marked shut their doors in his face when they heard his request; others gave him a sly smile and a crook of a finger. By the third time he'd been led down a false path, he was lit with an anger that burned him from the inside out. He gave that bastard a permanently crooked nose and a left hand that would heal too slow and always ache. 

Afterwards Leonard walked the city, slum to slum, feeling sick and hopeless and too aware of the shadow that had followed him from the conman's house. He warned the fool to leave him the fuck alone.

But at the next turn of an alley, the shadow slid closer, its eyes veiled, and stepped into Leonard's path. "He was wrong to trick you." It held out a hand fisted around a wad of cash.

Leonard pocketed what he had been cheated out of without counting it. He doubted it was all there but nothing could be done about that now. "You should have warned me."

The shadow, shorter and smaller than Leonard, met his gaze without fear. "I wanted to eat next month—but now I know it was wrong to trick you."

"Because I'm like you."

"Yeah."

Leonard muttered a quiet _fuck_ under his breath and dug out a cigarette. When the shadow looked hopeful, he said, "You can't have one. You're too young."

He got a very sour "Fuck you" in return.

Leonard grunted, mildly amused, and took a long drag. He blew the smoke to the side and, a moment later, pulled the money back out of his pocket. He shoved half of it into the shadow's grimy hands, turned away, and started walking again. He didn't want thanks and he didn't expect any. Some decisions were best made in one second and forgotten in the next.

It surprised him when the kid came after him and said in a rush, holding tightly onto Leonard's forearm, "There's somebody who can do it. He... found me, once, when nobody else could. My parents paid him a lot of money to get me back."

Leonard considered whether or not that might be the truth. "Then why aren't you still with your parents?"

A laugh, there and gone. "Would you believe me if I said street life was easier?"

Leonard didn't answer that, couldn't because he _did_ believe the kid. If his own parents had been different, loved him less, he might have given up on them too.

The kid let go of his arm, muttered a name; then, before Leonard could express gratitude, he became a shadow again, just a shapeless figure in the dark that slowly ebbed away. 

Leonard took the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it beneath the heel of his shoe. It tasted too bitter for him to still enjoy it.

One more try, he promised himself, standing alone in the alleyway. One more. Joanna was counting on him.

* * *

  


The name was well-known in certain circles. Leonard learned plenty because now he knew the right questions to ask. With the knowledge, though, came warnings. People believed in what the mage could do but no one trusted him—and they gave Leonard more than one good reason why.

In the end, armed with a location, a number and a deep uncertainty, he still had to try. He drove for two days straight, and when he was close enough, he stopped at a payphone and made a call. Someone picked up on the second ring.

All sense and sanity fled. Leonard blurted out, "I need your help." Then he held his breath, because that had been entirely the wrong thing to say between strangers.

But an answer came a second later, eerily calm: "Tell me."

With a trembling in his hands, Leonard did.

* * *

  


A set of directions took Leonard out of the city limits and down a private, paved lane. Once parked in front of the property, he thought he might have stepped into another world and rubbed his palms against the rough fabric of his jeans to remind him of what was real. Gathering his courage, he left the safety of his truck.

A gateway, which Leonard went through cautiously, led to an inner yard, a square court with trees standing leafless. Odd that, he noted, as if in this place the sweltering heat of mid-summer was not allowed past the tall iron-wrought fence. He felt a chill and shivered.

A man opened the double doors at the opposite end and stepped down from a small terrace. His hair was vivid black against the pale stonework of the house. "You are Mr. McCoy," he stated. "I welcome you to my home."

Leonard tried not to show his surprise, released the breath he wanted to hold. The guy seemed neither young nor old, and power clung to him like tendrils of a vine. Though Leonard could not physically see where the power was emanating from, out of the corner of his eye he imagined it breaking through the roots of the trees, from a well deep in the earth, and spilling into the courtyard to find a willing receptacle. Earth magic was relatively familiar to Leonard, but the kind here felt foreign and he did not want that power to touch him.

"Take the side path," the man said. "It will guard you."

Leonard swallowed and nodded. Now that he was looking down, he could see the patterns inlaid along the ground. From the perspective of an outsider, it might be the artistic flare of a landscaping design. Leonard saw something else. He chose a white streak of granite that curved along the border of a flower bed. It carried him safely to the edge of the terrace.

His voice held his relief. "When we talked on the phone yesterday, Mr. Sarek, I got the impression you weren't going to help me."

"Sarek only."

"Sarek," Leonard repeated, then added sincerely, "So thanks—thank you for seeing me."

"You have traveled a great distance, Mr. McCoy. It would be unkind to turn you away. Please, be welcome. Come inside." 

Sarek placed his hands behind his back and led the way. Leonard was far too desperate to do anything but follow. 

The inside of the house was as intimidating as the outside. It was spacious, sparsely but expensively decorated, and austere, although not in an unfriendly way. Leonard did not get the sense that many people lived with Sarek. The air was too hushed, too still like it wasn't used to being disturbed. 

His attention became captivated by the adornments on a far wall.

"Ah, the fauchard," Sarek remarked, noticing the direction of his guest's gaze. "It was favored by medieval Europeans between the eleventh and fourteen century. Unfortunately its design did not make it as effective as they wished it to be."

For being so old, the blade gleamed like it had been recently polished. "Looks like a scythe to me."

"Yes, but it was never a tool for farming."

Leonard figured he shouldn't know more than that and reined in his curiosity. The two men crossed the broad room to a hallway that was long enough to run the length of the house. They passed several closed doors until Sarek halted before a door of mahogany. He skimmed his fingers across its surface then turned the knob. A spell unraveled and dissipated.

The room had no windows. The air inside smelled of pitch. Light from a series of wall sconces revealed a massive hearth, a charred ring in the center of the floor, and shelves upon shelves of books, some with metal locks on them. 

Leonard's heart thudded in his chest. He didn't go farther than the doorway. "Do you normally invite strangers into your practice room, or am I special?" 

The only thing he had in his back pocket was a lighter. It was the height of stupidity, he realized belatedly, to enter the home of another Marked without a way to defend himself. Leonard had just assumed he would be able to walk back out again, unmolested. What a fucking idiot!

And there was no doubt this guy had _real power_.

Sarek studied him with one eyebrow lifted. "Do you believe I intend you harm?"

"You could," Leonard replied, then tried for menacing. "Or maybe I'm the one who might hurt you. Ever thought about that?"

Sarek didn't even blink. "We are unknown to one another. This is a fact. However, if your intentions were at all malicious, Mr. McCoy, you would have not made it past the wards on the gate."

"Oh," muttered Leonard, feeling stupider. "Oh, right." 

Of course Sarek knew he didn't have anything to fear from Leonard—but Leonard still had a feeling he ought to fear Sarek.

Then he remembered Joanna, and his fear became irrelevant.

"I brought what I could find," he said, drawing a small pouch out of his jacket. He walked to a large round table, set the pouch down and pulled off the string that held it together. The cloth fell open to reveal its contents. "There's not much left, you understand, of those days except an old book or two. The curse was cast during my great-grandfather's time."

Sarek stepped up to the table and lightly touched a lock of dark, brittle hair.

Leonard jammed his hands into his jean pockets. "It was my mother's." Next to it was another curl of hair, the color of gold whose sheen had grown dull. "My daughter's, from a couple of years ago. I thought... well, I thought it might help to have the connection."

"If they are in fact victims of a curse, these articles will be useful in tracking the maker."

"Joanna's not a victim," Leonard said tightly. An admission of _not yet_ lingered unspoken.

Sarek picked up the small leather-bound journal. "May I?" 

Leonard shrugged then turned away as Sarek opened the journal up to the place where a page had been creased. While Sarek read the entry that served as a vague origin story of the curse, Leonard went to the nearest bookshelf and half-heartedly browsed the collection. Some of the books looked new, but most of them were thick and old and title-less. He didn't dare touch any of them.

Inevitably the silence became too much. He circled back to Sarek and almost demanded, "Can you do it?"

Sarek was staring off into space, Leonard's great-grandfather's journal cradled loosely in his hands.

" _Hey_ ," Leonard snapped, beginning to feel sick with his desperation again, "don't bullshit me on this! Some quack in Memphis said you got some kind of fuckin' immunity from the Feds, so you have to be damned good." 

It galled Leonard that his best chance to find the truth came from a man who played lapdog for a government that wanted his kind to live in fear. It couldn't matter, though, because any help was better than none, better than continuing to let time slip away while his child died.

He was to the point of tearing out one of his own ribs and offering up as enticement for the Devil.

This might be close to that, he figured. Sarek, with his calm stance and ancient eyes, probably was a devil in disguise. He hadn't mentioned the price for his magic yet, and Leonard couldn't imagine the fee, whether it was monetary or not, being small.

He drew in a deep breath. It did little to calm him down.

Sarek had focused on the world around him again. He was looking at Leonard. "I believe I can help you."

Leonard's shoulders felt bow-string tight. "What'll it cost?"

"I don't ask a price for myself."

"No," he agreed, "the price is for the magic. What will it take?"

Sarek closed the journal and handed it to him. "That I cannot tell you, Mr. McCoy. What price does your healing magic demand?"

Leonard stopped breathing. "How did you...?"

"All mages are kindred. Just as you recognized my magic, I too recognized yours." There was no disingenuousness in Sarek's eyes. "Your hands are touched the most by it but the reservoir lives there." He pointed to the center of Leonard's chest.

Leonard shifted on his feet, uncomfortable at the thought that Sarek could piece him together so easily. "It's no good to me right now, which is why I need you."

"And you shall have my help. There is a spell—" Sarek's voice cut off abruptly, and the man turned to the closed door. 

A bad feeling swept down Leonard's spine. "Sarek?"

"A moment" came the soft reply. The other man shaped the air in his hand, but whatever he saw in that shape did not pose a threat, as tension left him moments later. "I had forgotten," he said.

Leonard knew that murmur wasn't for him. He waited to have Sarek's attention again. When he did have it, it came with a surprise:

"Would you like to meet my son?"

The question was so out-of-the-blue, so awkwardly normal, it rocked Leonard back onto his heels. "Excuse me?"

"My son has arrived." Sarek clearly did not comprehend the strangeness of his sudden change in topic. "Allow me to make the introduction."

"But—"

"If I do not do so at this time, Mr. McCoy," Leonard was informed with an air of amusement, even if Sarek's face gave away no inkling of his feelings, "it will only delay this day's work. My son can be... a determined individual in regard to family affairs." 

Sarek was already heading for the door like Leonard had agreed to the request. Leonard closed his mouth and, seeing no other option, followed obediently.

They ended up on the other side of the house, where a tall dark-haired man stood with his back to them in a foyer, cell phone in hand. The man turned in their direction as Sarek strode forward, saying, "Spock."

Leonard stayed some distance away because it wasn't his place to be in the middle of a family reunion. And a reunion it did look like, for there was a large suitcase by the front door, white airport tags attached to one of its handles.

The man named Spock fixed his gaze over his father's shoulder and scrutinized Leonard. Leonard scrutinized him back, making a point with his posture that he didn't give a damn about whatever conclusions the guy came up with. So what if he wasn't neatly dressed like Spock? If he was in old jeans and a tattered shirt instead of a pressed suit with a perfectly straight tie and a pin on the lapel which rivaled the pomposity of the—

Leonard felt a punch to his gut, his eyes tracking back to the pin. Without knowing it, he moved away, hands curling at his sides. "What is this?"

Spock stepped around his father, giving Leonard a clear view of the insignia on the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

 _Fuck._

Leonard's first instinct was to flee. His body twitched as if to do exactly that.

" _Mr. McCoy._ " The whip-like crack of Sarek's voice caught and held Leonard fast. 

Leonard threw out an accusing finger. "Is this a fucking _joke?_ He's a Fed!" There was no hiding the fear beneath the hot anger of his words. Dread, something close to panic, started to weigh down his limbs. "You bastard, this whole time you planned to—"

"Do not speak to my father that way," Spock interrupted, voice cold.

Leonard felt his upper lip curl.

Sarek lifted his hands. "Do not be alarmed, Mr. McCoy. It is my mistake that I did not recall today my son was to return home. Had I remembered, I would not have asked you to come. But what is done, is done. I give you my word: there is nothing you need fear while you are in this house."

Leonard almost said "I don't believe you" but Sarek held his eyes until Leonard swallowed the words.

"You came to me for help. Let me help you. Spock will not be involved."

Spock shifted to give his father a look, seeming as startled by this pronouncement as Leonard. Leonard looked between the two men and didn't know what the hell to think. He drew in a long breath and thought about how close he was to his goal. He'd come this far. Even if Sarek was a traitor, Leonard still needed his magic.

He cursed for the umpteenth time in his head and said, voice not shaking but not quite steady either, "Fine. I didn't see him—" He stared hard at Spock. "—and he didn't see me."

Spock seemed unimpressed by the baleful glare and put his back to Leonard. "Father, I will unpack." 

Despite what Leonard had just said, the show of insolence scratched his temper. He bit out, "You got a problem, _Spock?_ "

Spock picked up his suitcase. "I believe the person with the issue is you, sir." The man glanced at his father, gaze curious.

"Leonard McCoy," Sarek supplied.

Shit, thought Leonard, he should have used an alias.

"Hm," said Spock. He assessed Leonard for the second time.

Leonard managed to hold his tongue. He hadn't seemed to piss Spock off by just existing, but that didn't mean shit. Most agents didn't need more than a flimsy excuse to go after a Marked, so he sure as hell shouldn't give this bastard a reason to look sideways at him.

It seemed the smart thing to do was to fix his gaze on an obscure spot above Spock's head and pretend not to care as Spock studied him like an insect under a microscope.

"Spock," Sarek's voice broke into the tense silence in the foyer, "please come to the kitchen once you have finished unpacking."

Spock inclined his head in agreement and headed for a set of stairs without glancing back. Leonard felt equally relieved and pissed.

Sarek waited until Spock was gone from sight to move past Leonard, ridiculously regal and serene, back the way they'd come. Leonard went after him, once again feeling like he didn't have a choice in the matter.

"We're going to do the spell?" he said, more as a hope than a question.

"No," answered the mage. "We will go to the kitchen to wait for my son."

In that moment, Leonard finally understood what all that raw power had cost Sarek over the years. The man was crazy.

And it was just Leonard's usual dumb luck to be stuck with him.

* * *

  


While waiting, Sarek produced one of those giant books which had detailed maps of each state in the US. He explained to Leonard the theory of a locator spell. Spells left behind a residue that could be traced, and sometimes it took decades, even a century, for that residue to completely fade. It depended on the strength of the caster of the spell. Curses in particular were spells which required a lot of energy in order to be sustained for long periods of time, so a curse-worker was often more powerful than the average mage. 

Sarek said the last location of the curse-maker was identified in stages, starting with a region and ending with, hopefully, a city. The McCoy family's curse-maker was likely dead, but his final resting place would still hold some semblance of the power he held in life. And mages were often buried with relics of their magic.

"If he wasn't burned," Leonard pointed out. The family had to be important in high places if they wanted to claim a burial plot for a Marked. Even then, it didn't always happen. They could taint the very earth, many people believed, in life or in death.

Sarek only replied, "Let us hope for the best."

At that point Spock came into the kitchen and Leonard hated him for the interruption. Since Spock appeared quite unsurprised to once again be in Leonard's presence, Leonard increased the intensity of his glowering. He didn't want the fool to assume _he_ approved of the company.

"Father, is there a reason why you wished to see me?"

"Have a seat, my son," Sarek said even as he stood up and left the kitchen table. "There are many things I would speak of to you but in the essence of time I will only say, I am pleased you are home."

Leonard turned his head to the side, suddenly and acutely wishing he was elsewhere.

"As am I. ...Do you require my help in any matter?" The question was polite but cautiously phrased.

"No." 

However, it was the hesitation in Sarek's voice that caused Leonard to look around. Sarek was watching Spock with a keen interest.

"There are some items I must prepare. Perhaps you would be amendable to looking after my guest while I work?"

Leonard jumped up from his chair. "I'll go with you!"

Sarek had apparently already made up his mind. "I think it best if you waited here, Mr. McCoy." 

If Sarek's son had a bemused face, he had to be wearing it right then. For his part, Leonard was re-evaluating his impression of Sarek: the man wasn't just crazy, he was one hundred and ten percent bat-shit crazy.

"Excellent," murmured Sarek, no doubt taking the silence in the kitchen as agreement. With his book of maps tucked under one arm, Sarek left Spock and Leonard to sort out themselves on their own.

* * *

  


Five minutes later of no conversation and surreptitious looks at Spock, a buzzing started under Leonard's skin. He ignored it and chewed on his bottom lip as he thought.

There had to be a good reason why Sarek left him with Spock, only Leonard couldn't figure it out. Was this a trap? Maybe a game the two played with some unsuspecting idiot?

Leonard didn't want to be that idiot so why was he still sitting here? He should be with Sarek. Hell, he'd carelessly left the journal in the man's care.

Leonard pushed away from the kitchen table, only to immediately hear, "If my father has asked you to wait, it would be wise to obey."

He challenged, "Why?"

Spock had dark, emotionless eyes to match his emotionless face. That must be a lesson taught to all federal agents, Leonard concluded. _Can't have them giving away government secrets on the whim of a laugh._ He gave a derisive snort.

Sarek's son was odd in that he completely ignored Leonard's belligerence and opted instead to ask, "Would you care for something to drink?"

Leonard figured his stare was answer enough, and kept on staring at the back of Spock's head as the man went about the business of making himself tea. Just as Spock reached for a mug in a cupboard, a question unexpectedly burst out of him: "How the hell can you be one of _them?_ "

Spock set the mug down on the kitchen counter. "I do not see how my choice of employment is your concern."

Leonard took that statement for the bait that it was. "You know what they do to people like your father—or doesn't that matter to you?" He dropped his hands under the table and dug his fingers into his knees, acknowledging that the bitter taste at the back of his throat was hatred. "Of course it doesn't. You're not like us, are you?"

Spock stiffened minutely but did turn to meet Leonard's eyes. "You are correct. I am not like my father."

Leonard's upper lip wanted to curl again. "Thought so." The hard edge to his tone grew harder. "Just so we're clear... If you think I'll let you put me in cuffs, you're wrong. Fucking wrong," he repeated.

Spock turned back to the empty mug and a kettle of boiling water on the stove. "I decided to visit my parent while on leave, Mr. McCoy. Unless you choose to make this event significant, I do not intend to return to duty until I must."

Leonard didn't know how to take that. If it was an olive branch, it was a poor one. Everyone knew Feds lied through their teeth. He couldn't trust Spock. It would be a fatal mistake, he just knew it.

Resuming their silence seemed the better option. Leonard transferred his stare to the bay window. He could see the courtyard and the trees. Their bare branches swayed in a silence perhaps heavier than the one in the kitchen. He didn't think there was any wind; nothing else in the courtyard moved.

Spock stood at the far end of the kitchen, mug in hand. He had his cell phone in the other. Its screen had to be inordinately fascinating.

A prickling started at the back of Leonard's neck. He rubbed at it. Minutes passed but the feeling lingered. "Where's your bathroom?" he asked abruptly. 

Spock's head came up. He blinked.

"Bathroom, restroom, toilet!" snapped Leonard, bristling.

Spock told him. Leonard jammed his hands into his pockets and strode out of the kitchen. As soon he judged he was far enough away from the kitchen, he went in search of Sarek.

* * *

  


Admittedly, Leonard got lost. Most of the doors in the never-ending hallway turned out to be mahogany. He came close to stomping back to the kitchen, thought about dragging that no-good Fed out by his ear and shaking Sarek's location out of him.

Of course, it was likely he'd end up shot before he laid a hand on Spock. Spock might be on vacation but Leonard wasn't foolish enough to think the man wasn't wearing a holstered gun under that suit jacket while in the presence of the enemy.

So he did the next best thing: he stilled his breathing and asked politely to be shown the way. The hallway matched him in stillness for a few moments; then a tugging at his clothes led him. He took only a few steps before he remembered what else he had to fear besides Spock.

But it had to remain irrelevant. Had to. Sarek said he was going to help, and there had been no guile in that promise.

The tugging stopped at the door he sought. It was closed. Leonard laid a palm against the wood. To his relief, the protection spells had been disengaged. He considered knocking but decided against it because any unexpected sound could throw Sarek off-stride if he were in the middle of spell-casting. Instead, slow and with care, Leonard turned the knob.

A sense of _wrongness_ washed over him before the door was fully open. He almost choked on it as he fumbled past the threshold.

The room was a nightmare. Everything had been torn asunder, splintered or destroyed. In the center of it all, Sarek lay prone across the line of the charred circle, eyes wide-open and clouded. 

Fear tried to hold Leonard back; instinct drove him forward. He dropped to his knees and reached for Sarek at the same time he closed his eyes. As soon as they connected, he heard a wailing of sorrow and fury, distant, many voices caught in a windstorm, heard like a heartbeat invisible fists pounding against the outer walls of the house. He forced himself to ignore it all and concentrate, letting his magic spin out under his hands and into Sarek.

Emptiness where there was once life; life—a parody of it, utterly alien—where there should be none. He felt the moment the thing became aware of him.

It had a voice that sounded like shards of broken glass. Every shard cried at Leonard, _You!_

It had fingers of ice that let go of Sarek's bones and reached for his.

And it had mad, restless eyes of the same lizard green that Leonard's eyes turned to when he healed.

In every sense—body, mind, and magic—Leonard recoiled, full of the fear and knowledge that whatever had struck down Sarek was not finished. There was something it wanted but did not yet have. Something it recognized in _him_.

He came back to the room with a jerk, opened his eyes and found his fingers loosening from a stiff, unfamiliar position. Sarek was cold beneath him. Leonard stared at him helplessly. His mouth had the dry, papery taste of ash.

Nothing to be done. He knew it with deep certainty, didn't need the voice of logic inside him to say it. There was nothing he could do, not for Sarek. His magic wasn't the kind to bring back the dead.

A sudden noise, maybe a suppressed inhale or nearly inaudible gasp, told Leonard he was not alone. A shadow must have filled the doorway while he was in the thrall of a green-eyed monster and frozen there. It was Sarek's son, Spock, his face colorless, expression shifting, cracking like a mask that couldn't contain that which lived beneath it. For a moment, Leonard saw himself as Spock saw him—and the image was damning.

He took his hands off Sarek's chest. He might have cried something inarticulate, a warning, but Spock came to life anyway, swiftly, and knelt by his father's body. It was self-preservation that made Leonard push away and stand up. He swallowed hard as he watched Spock's fingers press deep into Sarek's neck. When those fingers trembled, Leonard had to look away.

The table was upturned, books shredded, pens scattered. By Leonard's feet, a blackened jar had shattered and something foul leaked out of it, forming a puddle. Candles lay broken in half, their wicks was still smoking at one end. Although it seemed impossible, the hearth was a burnt-out shell in the wall.

And suddenly Leonard saw it in his desperate glance around the room: loose pages, the maps. Somehow, to some end before he had been attacked, Sarek had started the spell with them. Three bore marks. Leonard couldn't tell if the marks were in red ink or blood.

He took a step towards them.

As if that was a catalyst, the air in the room changed. Leonard's attention snapped back to Spock. Energy was gathering around the man, slowly at first, then starting to snowball until it nearly crackled. Spock lifted his head and locked eyes with Leonard. Though they were no longer emotionless, Leonard could understand nothing in those glazed eyes—not until the grief faded from them and the promise of death came.

Spock's voice was an eerie, flat echo when he said, " _What have you done?_ "

Leonard didn't think. He snatched up the maps and ran. 

He didn't get far before under and around him, the house started trembling with rage. _Different, my ass_ , Leonard thought as a nearby mirror fell off a wall and crashed to the floor. Spock took after his father.

He half-expected furniture to come flying at him, to knock him down, but when he ducked through a door to the outside he was unharmed. It wasn't until Leonard had stumbled down the terrace steps and raced headlong across the courtyard that he realized the peril of mindless flight. He was on the wrong path. 

Something nasty sank teeth into his ankles. Leonard jerked out of its grip and fell sideways with a near-cry, skinning the palms of his hands as he caught himself. One of the maps almost sailed away. Leonard grabbed at it and came back with an arm coated in gray. The ground, he realized in shock, was covered in ashes. Mixed with the dirt, it made the yard smell of iron, richer than a man's blood.

His heart leapt at a crack of thunder. The thunder came again, then once more but not from the sky: one after the other, limbs were snapping off the trees and melting like bones in fire. Ash was all they left behind. The thing which had killed Sarek was killing his magic too.

Leonard shook off the wild darkness trying to ensnare him and rolled to his feet. He fought and swore his way from the dying magic until he was completely free of it, or it was too weak to fight him. He didn't know. At last he burst through the gate and into a different world, a place of hot, shrunken shadows and the shimmering glare of noon. From there, Leonard did the only sensible thing—the very thing he had been doing all along: he kept running.


	5. Part Four

Leonard took a deep breath and knocked on a door. After a moment of waiting, he nervously checked down the empty hallway, drew in another mouthful of air, and called a name in his softest voice before knocking again. The door opened a crack to expose a long chain and the suspicious eye of someone behind it. 

"How did you know where to find me?" asked that eye's owner.

Leonard held up a wrinkled blue envelope. "I took a leap of faith your return address wasn't a lie." A second passed, then another, while Leonard received a baleful glare. He figured he ought to be polite. "Can I come in?"

The door shut, and there came the sound of the chain being removed. When it opened again, a young woman with folded arms blocked the entranceway. "I don't know that I want you in my house, Leonard McCoy."

"Christine..."

"Don't 'Christine' me. I think I have the right to slam this door in your face."

A low-burning anger flared. "Damn it, woman, just let me in!"

Her chin came up. "No."

The elevator dinged at the end of the hallway, and Leonard put his back to that direction without thinking, the line of his shoulders curving in tightly. 

The woman he was arguing with, after observing this reaction with sharp blue eyes, surmised rather unsympathetically, "So you're in trouble."

"Chances are I'm going to prison for murder."

Her look shifted toward speculation. " _Did_ you murder somebody?"

"No."

For a second, Leonard thought he'd lost his chance entirely, but Christine glanced away before releasing a long sigh through her nose, the kind that said _why do I even know you?_ and took a step back from the door. 

"I guess we have something to talk about, then," she said before disappearing into her apartment.

Relieved, Leonard followed her. Being out of the public eye, despite that no one in this city was currently interested in watching a stranger like him or knew yet that they should be interested in his activities, eased some of the tension in Leonard. The darkness of Christine's living room made him feel even more secure. That darkness must have suited her too, because she reached for a lamp but seemed to think better of turning it on at the last second and shifted to face him in the dark. A streetlamp from beyond the windows gave just enough light to illuminate the outline of her body.

"You're a son of a bitch," she said.

"And you're frankest woman I ever met. Thanks for letting me in."

"I didn't do it for you."

He gave a slight nod. "I know." As his companion's eyes glinted in the dark, his unease returned. "Can you turn on the lamp?"

"Afraid?"

Leonard laughed softly. "Only in that I can't tell if you're planning to knife me or not—but I doubt I'd see it coming anyway, if that's what you were set on doing."

Christine switched on a table lamp. "I wouldn't kill you, Len, but only because your daughter is still fond of you. On the day that's no longer true..." She smiled too sweetly at him.

Leonard looked away, thinking that if Joanna died he would be _grateful_ to have someone put him out of his misery. He forced himself to return his gaze to Christine. 

She wasn't smiling anymore. "You look like shit."

Leonard rubbed his eyebrow with a thumbnail and answered vaguely, "I've had better days."

Suddenly, Christine's body angled away from him. Her admission was abrupt. "Same."

That was when he saw what he should have noticed right away: the circles under her eyes, the deep grooves of her cheeks, the jut of her collarbone. A loose-knit sweater exposed her shoulders in a such way that signified she had lost weight since last time they had seen each other. Christine had always been petite in size but now she looked frighteningly frail.

Like Jo.

Leonard set aside any negative feelings and focused on his concern. "Is the insomnia back?"

Christine hugged her middle. "It's Jocelyn. She's been haunting me lately. I didn't know why until..." She turned to him, her gaze both pained and accusing. "Until I heard from your father," she finished.

 _Fuck_ , Leonard thought. He didn't know what to say.

"You should have told me." 

Christine sounded like she hated him.

"I couldn't."

"Why not! Did you think it would be a kindness to call me the day after she died—or not call me at all? Well, _fuck you_. I'm her _godmother_."

"Fine," Leonard snapped back, head jerking up, "I didn't want to! But let's get something straight, Chris. I may be the world's biggest bastard but I'm also Joanna's father. I told you from the start it wouldn't do you any good to keep in contact with us."

Though he half-expected the slap to his face, it still made him step backward in surprise. Christine's fingers curled into a fist as if she intended to full-out punch him in the second round. 

He caught her wrist and held it fast with the warning, "That's enough."

"Let go!" she cried, tearing at his fingers. "Why did you have to come into our lives, Len? _Why?_ "

He lowered her arm and, after some reluctance, let go of her wrist. "I used to ask myself that a lot but since Jo came along?" He shook his head. "I can't regret it. I'm sorry, Chris, I am—" Christine's eyes squeezed shut. He waited until she opened them again to speak. "—but you can't hold me responsible for Jocelyn's death."

Seeing the resignation in her eyes was worse than seeing the hatred.

"I don't blame you," Christine said. "Not anymore. I just... Joanna is all that's left of my best friend, and you weren't going to tell me I might lose her too. For that, you _are_ a bastard."

"I'm sorry," Leonard said again.

Christine wrapped her arms back around her middle and crossed the room. "I guess you might be here a while. Do you want something to drink?"

"Water's fine." 

Leonard stood awkwardly in her living room until she came back. He looked at the bottle in her hand. 

"What?" came the challenge.

"That's not water," he remarked dryly.

Christine held out a glass to Leonard, which was actually filled with tap water, and twisted the top off the bottle once one of her hands was free. "The whiskey's for me." True to her word, she took a swallow straight from the bottle, not sputtering afterwards with the practice of someone long used to the whiskey's burn. They both sat down on the floor, out of a half-forgotten memory.

Leonard was already regretting his choice of beverage. He drained his glass in hopes Chapel would take pity on him and share. Now that he thought about it, he surely could use the liquor. Being sober didn't seem to have any advantages over being drunk. 

"Nope," commented Christine, as though she could read his mind. "The last time we got wasted together..." She made a face.

"The sex wasn't that bad."

"What the hell do you know? You don't remember it."

It was the first and only time they had slept together. Leonard had woken up the morning after in a small room at Ole Miss in confusion, vaguely certain since he wasn't a student he wasn't supposed to be on campus, much less in a girl's dormitory, and missing his pants. Then his night of heavy drinking had made itself known with a terrible vengeance: he'd wound up on his knees puking for an hour straight in the communal bathroom, to the disgust of several young female college students. That was how he met Jocelyn. She had laughed at him, kindly bathed his sweaty face and asked him his name (because apparently her roommate Christine had no clue). Later—after nearly two years of on-and-off dating—Jocelyn came to him with the news that she was pregnant. 

It wasn't a romantic story by any stretch of the imagination, not with either woman, but at least some of the memories were good ones. Once upon a time, Leonard had had a girl would hold his hand in public and flip her long hair at anyone who looked askance at the scar on his wrist; and once upon a time, Christine—like Jocelyn—had been another person he could talk to.

He didn't know what they were now, except temporary drinking buddies.

Leonard gave her the most pathetic expression he could muster. Christine rolled her eyes but lifted the whiskey bottle in his direction. He took it with a heartfelt "Thank you."

"I want you gone in the morning," she said as he took off the cap.

"I will be," he promised.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her mouth and stood up. The light from the table lamp cast a strange shadow across her face. "I'll be going down to stay with Joanna for a while. I've already put in for leave from work."

Leonard didn't say anything because Christine wasn't asking for his permission and they both knew it. She turned and walked away, and he watched her go.

It was the ache in his heart that made him call out at the last second: "Hey, Chris!"

She paused in the archway between the living room and hall with a surprisingly tolerant expression.

"I ditched my phone. Tell my dad that, and not to worry. I'll try to find a way to let him know how things are going." After swallowing hard, he added quietly, "And tell Jo I miss her."

Christine watched him for a long moment, then asked, "Do you know where you're headed?"

He ran a hand over his face but said, "There's a map—somebody I have to follow."

"Even when your child needs you? How is anything more important than her?"

Leonard didn't reply, and he had the feeling Christine judged him based him on his silence. Nonetheless, she didn't press the matter and left, he presumed, for her bedroom, where no doubt she would lock herself in for the night. He poured a generous amount of whiskey into his glass, drained and refilled it twice.

The ache at his temples was a warning that his body hadn't had a drink as strong as this in a long time. Alcohol always messed with his magic. Up to his late twenties, that hadn't been reason enough to limit his intake. His mindset had changed once Joanna was born, and he kept to one or two beers or a single shot of the harder stuff. But tonight Leonard didn't want to go easy on himself, or be fair. He didn't want to think beyond how much was left at the bottom of the bottle. With every swallow, the whiskey burned a smooth path to his stomach and made him feel warm from the inside out.

Hours later, he woke up face-down on a rug which hadn't seen a vacuum in a while. The taste in his mouth was foul. Beside his left hand was the empty whiskey bottle; in front of his nose was the crumpled blue envelope he thought he had hidden in an inner pocket of his jacket. Because it looked strange even to his bloodshot eyes, he reached for it. The thing turned out to be full of cash.

Leonard rolled onto his back and pressed the envelope against his forehead. After facing Christine's anger last night he hadn't had the heart to ask for money like he had originally intended, but of course she would have known that's what he wanted. Friends who were no better than strangers didn't show up in the middle of the night just to say howdy-do. People who couldn't be bothered to say "thanks for sending my kid birthday and Christmas cards every year" didn't visit out of the kindness of their hearts.

He sighed and made a silent promise. Christine Chapel wouldn't be just another name on a long list of debts he owed. He would pay her back someday. 

The voice in his head, whether a product of his drinking or just his nature, was much more cynical than the one in his heart. _Yeah right_ , it said, _and just who are you trying to fool?_

 _Everyone_ , he countered, and let it go at that.

Leonard cleaned himself up without making too much of a mess of Christine's bathroom and left the apartment building as inconspicuously as could be managed. Once securely in the car he'd traded for his truck on the way out of North Carolina, he pulled a burner phone out of the glove box and dialed a number he rarely used.

His contact answered on the fourth ring, like always: "So you're driving past a graveyard. How many dead people are in there?"

Leonard rolled his eyes and answered obligingly, "I don't know, how many?"

" _All of them!_ " There was a peel of laughter from the other end of the line.

"Where the fuck are you getting your jokes, Scotty?"

"Joke-a-pedia dot com. Like Wikipedia, only funnier."

Despite himself, Leonard felt his mouth stretch in a smile. "It's been a long time, I guess. How're you doing? How's Keenser?"

"Longer for you, methinks, if word on the street is anything to go by. I'd say I'm shocked to hear from you, my friend, but... yeah. And don't ask about Keenser. I loathe Keenser right now."

"You always do."

"People say that to me all the time! You know what? I'm not making this shit up, man, he's a little fuckin' demon—like _literally_. Little. Fucking. Demon. One day I was shaving in front of the mirror and the bastard popped right up in the glass with his fugly black eyes and scared the shit of me. I almost slit my own throat!"

Leonard's smile turned into a grin. "That was probably the point."

"Hardy-har-har. Here's a grand idea: why don't you swing by this way? I got a poltergeist I can lend you for your truck."

Leonard cleared his throat. They would wander farther off-track if he didn't get to the point. While he considered Scotty to be the closest thing he had to a real friend, part of the reason why they never talked too often was that it kept them on good terms. "You said something about 'word on the street'. How bad is it?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, "I was just trying to think up an accurate comparison and couldn't. It's _that_ bad. You know the guy who's after you is a Fed, right?"

"It was kinda hard to miss. He even parted his hair straight down the middle."

Scotty snorted. "They think they're the Men In Black, when really—"

"No," Leonard interrupted firmly, "we are _not_ bringing up aliens."

"You take all the joy out of these discussions." There was a pause. "But you know they're real, right? Like if I can be haunted by a demon from the underworld, and you can make people grow back thumbs, why can't there be life on Mars?"

"Shut _up_ , Scotty. Tell me about Spock."

"That's a contradiction. Am I supposed to shut up or talk?"

"Damn it, man!" Leonard growled over the line. "Is the son of a bitch following me or not?"

"You can't tell?"

"I don't know," said Leonard, glancing in paranoia through his rearview mirror. "More 'n more, I get this feeling that he's standing right around a corner or in the next room. I can't sleep because if I do, it's like something latches onto me. Maybe a tracking spell or some shit. You know his father did that kind of thing for pay. So, how close is he?"

"Hold up, I'm working on it. I'd tell you how I can oh-so-brilliantly hack into a federal GPS database but you wouldn't understand it. Ah, here we go. S-p-o-c-k, Spock Sss—heck no, what I'm not even gonna try to pronounce that last name. Or is it first name? One can never tell these days."

" _Scotty._ "

"Right. Got his agent number. A few clicks, and..."

The line grew so silent, Leonard checked his phone to make certain they hadn't been disconnected. "Scotty?" he called, feeling his stomach do an unpleasant flop.

"This is not good," came a mumbled response. "Oh, this is _not_ good."

"What is it?"

"I can't find him."

Leonard gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "What?"

"He's off Fed-radar." For the first time, Montgomery Scott sounded nervous. "Look, when I heard about—about the _thing_ , I did a little checking. This guy's cold-blooded. I mean, the kind of cold-blooded where his record shows more apprehended users in body bags than handcuffs."

"Fuck," Leonard said softly. Spock hadn't seemed like a psychopath in that brief interlude at Sarek's house. He had made tea and looked Leonard in the eyes without the usual hatred Leonard was accustomed to seeing.

That... obviously didn't count for shit. Leonard closed his eyes. If Spock was the type of agent the government used to "clean up" the mage population, then he didn't stand a chance. And given the fact that he had seen for himself that Spock was a child of two worlds, was able to tap into the supernatural like his father...

It didn't bear thinking about.

"Thanks for the heads-up," he said to his friend, voice thick with an emotion he didn't care to name. "You, uh, probably won't hear from me for a while."

"Wait, McCoy— _Leonard_ —no matter what the bullshit is going around, I know you didn't do it. Okay, so when the bulletin says you're a con artist, and a sometimes-thief, that's not a lie—but you're _not_ a murderer."

"Does that count for anything?" Leonard argued quietly.

Scotty's answer was equally quiet. "I wish it did."

"Believe me, when it finally does count, this will be a world we don't recognize. 'Course, I figure by the time that happens, if ever," said Leonard bitterly, "you and I will be long dead."

"In that case, I gonna pull a Keenser and terrify the shit out of everybody in my afterlife."

Leonard huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh on a better day. "I'll be right there with you, buddy. So long."

"Yeah," Scotty replied, and hung up.

Leonard set the cell phone down on the car seat beside him and gazed out the windshield. There wasn't much choice now. Wasn't much time.

He pulled out the folded paper from the glove box that had been beneath the phone and looked at it. When he had had a chance to actually inspect what he had snitched from Sarek's house, it had befuddled him at first. He had four maps—Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa—and at least one red mark on each. There had been no discernible pattern between them until he had gotten tired of jumbling the papers around. But after Leonard had trimmed the maps and taped them together along their matching borders...

He saw it for what it was: not the mismatched circles but the trail leading up the Mississippi River.

So that's what he had to do, follow that trail, and hope to God the one person who might have helped him, who was dead _because of him_ , hadn't been so crazy after all.

Leonard tapped a finger against the state of Kentucky, at a little blue splotch titled _Fork Lake_ , and wondered what he would find there. Then he had a sudden vision of vivid green eyes and shuddered, afraid that presence was exactly what he was set to encounter.

* * *

  


_August 2013_

The library was a crosshatch of faint, dusty light and smelled of wood polish. Distantly, there came the sound of a copier in the throes of printing and the creak of old stairs.

Leonard stuck an ink pen behind his ear, rolled up a much-abused spiral-bound notebook, and slapped the thing lightly against his thigh. "Are you sure you don't remember anything else?" he asked, trying to keep his frustration out of his voice.

His companion's eyes narrowed at him. "Where are you from?"

Leonard pursed his mouth.

"Your accent," insisted a lady old enough to be Leonard's grandmother, "I haven't heard it before 'cept on the tv. Where are you from, young man?"

"Georgia," he replied. "At least originally, I am."

"Iowa's a long way from Georgia."

"Ain't that the truth," he muttered, then cleared his throat. "Listen, are you sure there's nothing else you can tell me? I got..." He pretended to peek into his notebook even though he knew the number by heart. "...four dead children. That was it, just four?"

She looked him over slowly like she hadn't been eyeing him since the moment he stepped into the building. "What'd you say this was about again?"

"A book. I'm writing a book on the Occult." Generally, he didn't need to offer more explanation than that to get someone talking. It was a desire many people had to link even the most mundane of daily happenings to the supernatural, a desire Leonard didn't share or even understand.

"Is my name going in it?"

"Sure, if you want."

"Ms. Ida Cottrill. I know you wrote it down, but let me see if you spelled it right."

Leonard ground his back teeth, willing the return of some of his patience, and opened his notebook for her. He thought she would give it a sparing glance but the head librarian/only town historian snatched it right out of his hands. He tried to snag the thing back, but she tottered off a little ways and hemmed and hawed over the page's contents.

"I had my suspicions those killings weren't natural. They didn't make much about it in the paper at the time, 'cept to say the area was dangerous to campers, especially families with kids. News didn't even make it all the way up to Muscatine. Though of course," she said, casting one bright eye at him, "that was the sheriff's doin'. He's on the City Council over in their county now. Imagine that."

"Imagine that," Leonard agreed dryly. "Can I have that back, please?"

She snapped the notebook shut and laid it on the table between them. "I'm gonna ask you something, Mr. Smith."

Leonard just looked at her, because it wasn't like it mattered to the lady if he was okay with an interrogation. For the duration of the afternoon, she had peppered him with more questions than he had probably asked himself since he started digging into his family's curse nearly two months ago and following a string of dots on a big map.

"In all the US, why this town?" she said before gazing pointedly at the Mark on his wrist. 

Leonard ruthlessly suppressed the urge to tug his jacket sleeve over it. 

"And why now, when you would've been a bitty thing? It was sixteen years ago."

"I wasn't 'bitty'," Leonard pointed out. "I was fourteen." He took a minute to mull over the rest of his answer. "Listen, I'll show you something that might help you understand—but in return, I want the names of the other three children. Okay?"

She pursed her mouth just as he had earlier. "I told you there were four, and I showed you the articles and the records. Yet you seem so sure I've stuck a lie in there somewhere."

"Not a lie, ma'am, just a missing piece of the puzzle." He flipped to the most dog-eared page of the notebook. "See for yourself."

She leaned over the table, adjusting her spectacles as she did so, to see what he was pointing at. A chart, composed of staggering columns, question marks, and Leonard's atrocious shorthand, was faintly visible beneath dried coffee stains.

After a moment, Ida the Librarian made a clucking noise. "You think this is a pattern?"

He admitted, "I don't know. But I've been to each place, asked the same questions I've asked you, and there's too much about it to be coincidence. It has to be an event that keeps reoccurring, because of something or—"

"Magic," the woman supplied.

Leonard closed his mouth with a click. He had been going to say 'someone'. Because only people committed serial killings, didn't they?

That is, if the drownings were serial killings. He couldn't be 100%-positive of that. With every answer he garnered, the mystery grew stranger, and he couldn't yet picture how it was connected to his family or the curse-maker he wanted to find. Today he was researching the last red mark on the map, Little Spirit Lake, and coming up none-the-wiser.

The librarian pointed to a name on his chart. "Whiteside County—I have relatives over there. They always said that lake was haunted."

Not before 1990 they wouldn't have, Leonard thought to himself. "Seven kids drowned in three weeks. See the ones before Morrison? Same thing happened at each of those too."

"But none of these are in Iowa."

"No," he said. "I've been making my way up the Mississippi since July." 

He had never stretched his hunting ground farther north than St. Louis, so while traveling from Kentucky to Missouri, the days had slipped past with a certain familiarity; but since crossing into Illinois, then Iowa, Leonard had grown uncomfortable and antsy. He hated and anticipated every second on the way here.

She lifted her head and looked at him to scrutinize his expression. "I have to say, when you walked in I thought you might have been one of the crazy ones."

Leonard slid the notebook away from her and tucked it under his arm. "'Course you did," he said as evenly as he could manage. "Isn't that why you made me search this library by myself, so you could stay by the phone in case you had to call the police?" He glanced away. "You're not the first to make assumptions, lady. And as sure as the sun don't shine in hell, you won't be the last."

When he met her eyes again, she was already arguing, "You can't fault me for a natural reaction."

Leonard's hand may have clenched into a fist, but only for a second. There was a middle-aged man over by the window with an eye on him that didn't look friendly. "Yes, I can."

The woman only shook her head, as if he had disappointed her. "I'm no rights activist, Mr. Smith, and I don't believe in it either. You won't find a lot of that in this town, so my advice to you is don't linger in one place too long."

"Tell me about the rest of the children, and you won't have to see me again."

She hesitated. "I remember there was a boy that almost drowned. After him, there weren't any others."

Just one? "Did he say who tried to drown him?"

"Rumor was his wits were so addled afterward, nobody could make sense of anything the poor child said. It wasn't even a year later, the mother uprooted them both and left town. To be honest, that was a relief for a lot of folk. That woman was as stubborn as they came—she never would say who the boy's father was. Probably didn't know but she acted like he mighta been sired by God himself." She gave a huff like she might have said something humorous.

Leonard wasn't amused. He was worn down, uncertain, and afraid and that shortened his temper and sharpened his tongue. "I guess gossip didn't tell you where they went."

She sat down in a chair. "Upstate. That's all I know."

Leonard closed his eyes. Why wasn't life ever simple? Of course, if life could be simple, he wouldn't be chasing a lead like this with the air of a desperate man. He tried the ploy of letting some of that desperation leak into his voice. "Ma'am, it's important that I find 'im. Can you at least tell me his name? Or the family name?"

"This book must be mighty special for you to go to such trouble. I told you already, it's sixteen years over and done with. If I were you—"

"You aren't me!" he snapped. "You won't ever _be_ me, or know what it's like to be me! Now give me the fuckin' name!"

Leonard knew in the instant she reeled back, he had screwed up. He didn't need the fingers suddenly digging into his arm or the hot breath whistling past his ear to confirm it.

"This man bothering you, Miss Ida?" growled that voice. Leonard was jerked around to face the guy who had been watching him. "Maybe we should call the police."

"You do that," challenged Leonard. "Have one of your lazy-ass deputies haul his butt outta the local doughnut shop and tell him to lock me up for a casual conversation."

The man's jaw flexed. "I could say you attacked me."

Leonard gave him a nasty smile. "In that case, why bother with a lie?" He twisted his arm out of the idiot's grip and pulled back his fist.

" _Mr. Smith!_ " shrilled the librarian.

Leonard used that second of anticipation in the air to picture actually hitting the asshole in front of him then he lowered his hand. To Ida, he said, "I was just gonna oblige him."

Ida's shrewd gaze burned into his. "I think you should leave now."

Leonard let another moment pass, while the boorish man at his side waited to attack and the woman judged him, before initiating a mocking bow in her direction. "Thanks for all your help, ma'am."

His aggressor didn't immediately step aside, but Ida called the man sharply by first name and so Leonard was able to pass without incident. He forewent slamming his way out of the library in one final display of temper because it would bring him more attention, which he didn't need.

On the cracked sidewalk, Leonard jammed a hand into his hair. He stewed in silence for a minute, then with a curse turned for the parking lot and his car.

There was no way he could walk into a police station and ask about a sixteen year-old case. It had already been difficult enough ferreting out information town-to-town without drawing the eyes of the law. Because the moment the law saw him, he was done for and any hope for Joanna was gone along with him.

He had made it this far without an arrest. He had to make it farther.

As if it didn't care about his woes, Leonard's stomach rumbled. Sighing, Leonard decided he would have to do his detective work the very old-fashioned way. There was a diner two blocks down from his motel. Maybe there, while he ate his one allowanced meal a day, he could catch the name and whereabouts of the kid who was meant to drown in a lake but didn't.

* * *

  
The diner was quieter than expected for a mid-afternoon. Leonard found himself sipping black coffee at a counter beside a man who was his deceased grandfather's age. It had been his luck to strike up an easy conversation, or the poor guy was just lonely. Now Leonard was listening very attentively to a story about a pretty thing called Winona Anne Davis and decided luck and loneliness had nothing to do with it. There was a faint sensation that drew goosebumps along his arms and made him feel as if something deeper, unfathomable, was at work.

The story did nothing to soothe his fancy. 

"She and Franklin—that's her older brother—never did get along well, but after her son had his accident, things were worse than ever. Everybody knew she blamed the Sheriff for it."

"The sheriff or Franklin?" Leonard questioned.

"Both, or one and the same. However you choose to look at it, son." The man scooted his mug closer to the edge of the counter, and Leonard obligingly hailed the waitress to give them refills. "See, little Jamey... Was that his name?"

Leonard shrugged and mentally prayed half the things this guy told him were true and not just the product of senility.

"Well, Jamey was on a hunting trip with his uncle when it happened."

"You mean, when he fell in the lake."

The man blinked at him. "He fell in? That's not what I heard."

Leonard hurriedly said, "Never mind," because the story-teller tended to lose his train of thought easily. "So, I guess Winona left town."

The old man shook his head sadly. "It was best for the boy. People in this town... they don't do well with things they don't understand."

"Isn't everybody that way?" Leonard muttered at his own coffee.

"They said that something _evil_ must of touched his soul and that was why he was cursed."

Leonard's hands automatically tightened around the handle of his plain white ceramic mug. "Cursed?"

"Cursed. Afflicted bad," explained the story-teller. "Wouldn't no mutt come within a hundred yards of him. Animals can sense the supernatural, you know. FOX did a report on it once. Scientists made these special machines that read—"

"The kid—you were talking about Winona's kid."

"Oh, right. Little Jeremy. Like I said, he weren't right after that night down by the Spirit Lake. His mama had no choice but to find a special doctor for him, and even then nobody could figure out how to fix 'im. Soon enough, the townsfolk started acting like fools. Fear of the unknown does that to people. So she packed up and headed home."

Leonard leaned forward without meaning to. "Where's home?"

"Pretty little town, by the river." The man looked away and smiled at some distant memory. "Riverside. I met a girl during the war who was from there. She wore a yellow ribbon in her hair. Other girls had those short bobs, but not her." He breathed in deep and murmured: "' _Shall we gather at the river, where bright angel feet have trod; with its crystal tide forever, flowing by the throne of God?_ ' That's by Robert Lowery, she said—the poet, not the actor."

"Riverside," Leonard repeated, rolling the word on his tongue, "Riverside." He reached out and squeezed the man's arm in gratitude. "My thanks."

The old man startled back to the present and looked down at Leonard's hand. Leonard looked down, too, bemused in that instant, and saw his mistake. The brand on his skin was ugly in the brightness of the daylight.

"Sorry," he began to apologize, because a Marked touching a common man without explicit permission was often misconstrued as a threat.

But to his surprise, the man simply covered Leonard's wrist with his own hand and gave him a friendly squeeze in return. "You're all right, son," he said to Leonard. "I hope in my going-on there was something of worth to you."

Leonard nodded. "There was, sir, probably more than you know." And with that, he paid for both their coffees and made his plans to hit the road.

* * *

  
Esterville wasn't a large town but at night the darkness made it seem like the whole of the earth. That was why its population tended to stay home after sunset, unless otherwise was required of them.

On a Thursday night, the town was particularly still, but for the occasional hurried passer-by and the meow of an alley cat. Within its small but carefully preserved downtown, a streetlamp cast a long shadow across a concrete sidewalk. The man who entered a building bearing the Town Library plaque seemed to cast a shadow that was longer.

"We close in five minutes," warned an attendant at the soft sound of an opening door, not looking up until the newcomer approached the front desk. His eyes grew round and nervous when he saw the clothes, the posture, and the granite face. "How can I help you... sir?"

A photograph was presented to the attendant. "Have you seen this man?"

The attendant shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I'm sorry."

"Is there anyone else here who might have encountered him?"

"Mm, just me. Ida, maybe. She works in Reference. Should—should I call her for you? I mean, it's late. She only works mornings because, you know, it gets dark and she's old and doesn't like—"

"That was quite informative, thank you" came the interruption, and the attendant shut up promptly. "It will not be necessary to contact her at this time. I will return in the morning."

"Yes, sir." But as the inquirer turned away, the young attendant blurted out, "Is, ah, he dangerous? The guy in the photo?" 

It had to have been his imagination, the attendant would think later, that all the lights in the building flickered and dimmed as though their energy had been sucked right out of them. In any case, the electric bulbs jumped back to their rightful state a second later; he would just as quickly dismiss his unease.

"Is... he dangerous?" the question was repeated slowly, almost as if to ponder the matter was an exercise to be savored. The expressionless man's head tilted slightly. His answer was a simple, cold "Very."

The response left the attendant feeling extremely grateful he was not the unhappy face in the photograph because that poor soul, he decided, was about to meet a bad fate. 

Outside the library, the tall, suited man drew a weathered journal from his coat and momentarily contemplated it. Once it was re-pocketed, he began to walk with apparent purpose, challenging the other sidewalk shadows with a formidable one of his own.


	6. Part Five

Part of him drifted down the city sidewalk looking for something unfamiliar, something amiss. The rest of him, in the eyes of passers-by, trudged with the usual unfriendly gait, his mouth a flat line and eyes fixed firmly ahead. His entire aura was a clear warning to all to mind their own business before they even considered approaching him. Not that anyone had minded his business for a long time, except a select few—and in most cases, those few had not done so out of kindness. 

James Tiberius Kirk didn't care. He was following an itch between his shoulder blades that worsened with each step he took. It led him unerringly to a small shop he only frequented when necessary, when restless sleep dwindled to no sleep at all and, despite the number of times he blinked or shook his head, his nightmare stood placidly in the corner of his bedroom, watching him.

"You're back," the owner said as a bell above the shop door announced his entrance. Her tone of voice was neutral. Him being there meant profit for her.

Jim grunted. 

The woman understood his grunt was more of demand for _where is it?_ than hello. "I ought to have known," she muttered, but left her station at a long wooden counter and slipped around one of the cluttered towers of junk taking up space in her store. After a moment she came back with a figurine that fit snugly in the palm of her hand. She set it down in front of him without any care for how delicate it might be. "Guy who brought it in said it's an antique." Her look grew shrewd. "Fifty."

He knew the moment he picked up the tiny horse the woman was cheating him because it wasn't heavy enough to be anything but plastic. Closer inspection revealed the paint job was chipped badly around the hooves. 

Still, he held the child's toy, a thing hardly worth shit, and the feeling between his shoulder blades subsided. Jim couldn't leave it behind, had to have it regardless of cost, and she had already known that about him.

He didn't give her a kind look when he dug two twenties and a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and laid them on the counter, and he didn't stay to take his receipt. The owner might have been laughing as the door swung shut behind him.

Clutching his latest purchase, Jim didn't look right or left as he strode back the way he'd come. He could feel eyes following him, curious glances and long, speculative stares. He was used to ignoring the attention he garnered, even as his ears caught some of the whispers which resulted from it.

" _Who's that man, mommy?_ " a young voice chirped nearby.

" _Shhh. No one, sweetheart. No, don't look at him. Just keep going._ "

Invariably, the mother would cross the street to put him as far out of range of her child as possible, like they could be contaminated by proximity. Superstition always superseded reason, and nobody had ever judged him reasonably.

Strange man, the townspeople of Riverside thought when they saw him. Eccentric.

Jim was no fool. Eccentric was the polite version of crazy.

But these normal people, these ordinary men and women who had never had anything extraordinary happen to them, didn't know Jim well enough. They did not know the things about him which really mattered.

His fingers tightened around the miniature horse, its sharp edges cutting deeper into his flesh. 

What mattered was what he held, he reminded himself. Everything—and everyone—else could go to hell.

* * *

  
Leonard McCoy drove into the outskirts of Riverside, Iowa under the stony eye of a full moon with the expectation he was skirting a lot of trouble. Subsequently, he was run off the road. 

The sudden appearance of something indistinct but large and unnaturally luminescent gave him hardly any time to react. He swerved sideways toward a ditch, almost went over it, and afterward was left stunned and shaking inside his idling vehicle. Once he had enough presence of mind to pry his stiff fingers off the steering wheel and open his eyes, he found himself suspended by his seatbelt, the nose of his car firmly pointed at the ground. Climbing out proved to be awkward. 

Although he was unhurt (his gift told him that much), Leonard rotated his limbs with careful motions and tested them with body weight. His muscles refused to stop trembling but he figured that was par for the course after being in an accident. It would take a while for the shock to subside. Overall, that seemed a small price to pay to still have his life.

Leonard left the ditch and stood silently by the road. The refracted light from his car's headlamps was too entangled with the weeds to reveal much of the landscape. Not that there was much to see, he thought to himself as his eyes adjusted. Trees crowded on either side of the highway, bringing a darkness even moonlight could not ease. 

He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. 

Whatever had dashed in front of his car was long gone. Had it leapt into the woods? But there was no sound from the tree line, no rustling leaves or snapping branches animals caused as they passed through the underbrush.

Leonard realized then he had no idea what he had come close to hitting. There was not an impression left upon the back of his eyelids beyond a strange, empty brightness. He didn't know what that meant, but also conceded he wasn't in the frame of mind to contemplate the different possibilities. He turned his attention to his car stuck halfway in the ditch.

"How the fuck am I going to get you out of there?"

The answer was obvious: he couldn't by himself. Nor could he or should he hitchhike in the middle of the night in an unpopulated area to find help. That was asking for trouble, or more of it, as was dialing the highway patrol.

Dropping to the edge of the ditch, Leonard braced his head in his hands. It would be several hours until dawn, and the last of his gas station coffee was leaking into the car stereo. Really, this wasn't the best moment in the most important mission of his life. He supposed he would have to see what else came his way. 

In the end, he donned his jacket for warmth (it was unseasonably cold to him but maybe not for Iowa; Leonard didn't know their weather patterns) and propped himself against the side of his car to wait. The crickets and bullfrogs kept him company. Once in a while, there was an ululation from the woods. A bobcat, he convinced himself, but shivered each time he heard it.

* * *

  
Man was everywhere. He was a stain on the earth, and the reason the air reeked of iron and copper. But he fed the magic, and the magic wanted feeding, badly.

So long, so long—the waiting could not go on.

Magic lifted its head and cried out, having seen a Man through its mismatched eyes, first through the blue, then through the green.

* * *

  
Leonard was startled to consciousness when the ground began to tremble beneath him. Though his brain was tired, it made the immediate connection. Jumping to his feet, he stood by the road and waved his arms to hail the eighteen-wheeler.

It didn't slow down, spewing gravel and dirt in its wake. Leonard wiped at the grit near his eyes and cursed.

Sunrise was less than three hours away. He had hoped he would be in a motel bed by then but apparently no one in this region looked kindly upon a stranger lurking by a ditch and a wrecked car. If anything, it seemed his luck had gotten worse since he crashed. 

He lifted his gaze up to the night sky and eyed the heavy clouds crawling across the moon. The air smelled metallic as usually did before a thunderstorm.

Rain. Wasn't that going to be fucking lovely?

At least he hadn't locked himself out of his only shelter. He jerked open the door to the car's backseat and crawled inside. He had to brace his shins against the back of the driver's seat to keep from sliding into the floorboard. Drawing a cigarette and his lighter out of his pocket, he smoked with the door wide open. It kept him occupied for all of five minutes before he crushed the leftover butt between the calluses of his forefinger and thumb and tossed it outside. Leonard half-hoped somebody would show up to arrest him for littering.

An agonizing twenty minutes later, the skyline lit up again, headlights approaching from a distance. Leonard sat in his car, watching the light grow closer, listening to the whine of an engine. He thought about moving, but raindrops had just started to hit the windows. Likely, it was just another asshole who would keep going, he thought. Now that there would be mud puddles from the rain, the least he could do was save his clothes and himself the humiliation of getting splashed.

The car stopped.

Or rather, it was more accurate to say the car choked and gurgled and came to an abrupt halt as if it had died. The man who poked his head out of a rolled-down window had a wild beard hiding half a tanned face and a dark green ball cap tugged low over his eyes.

"What's this, then?" he called Leonard's way. "Had a bit of car trouble?"

"Accident," Leonard said, sliding out of the car to get a better look at the potential ride. "Deer."

The man nodded like that was all he really needed to hear. "They're plentiful this time of year, and you never see 'em coming until they're right in your way."

"Ain't that the truth," he drawled back, relieved but also oddly unsettled by the easy conversation. "I'm just glad I didn't actually hit it." He gestured at himself. "Otherwise I'd be in worse shape, I'm sure."

"Where're you coming from?"

Leonard had expected to be asked where he was headed. He didn't change his stance so as to remain non-threatening and shrugged carelessly. "From Illinois, actually."

"Well, welcome to Iowa."

"Yeah." Leonard allowed for a pause. "I saw a sign a ways back that said Riverside was a couple of miles ahead. I thought about walking but..." He shrugged again. "It's dark, and you know..." He trailed off.

The man in the ball cap grinned. His teeth were shockingly bright behind the beard. "Yeah. Predators."

The crickets and bullfrogs went silent. Leonard did the same.

The older style car which had been sitting in a low idle suddenly gave a low roar as if its driver had stepped on the gas pedal. The man who was at the wheel said to Leonard, in a rather good-natured tone, "Here're your options, kid. I can keep going and when I hit the next town, I'll give a call to the police and let 'em know where to find you—"

Leonard didn't move because there was something in the man's face that dared him to do exactly that.

"—or you can ride with me into town yourself, and your business stays your business."

"Is that a threat?"

"In this day and age, most people don't get stranded unless they're out of options to help themselves. You've got a cell phone, don't you?"

He didn't answer that.

"See," the man said, "knew I was right."

Leonard laid one of his hands against the cool metal of his car, feeling his heart rate increase and not liking it. "Listen, mister, while I appreciate you stopping... I think you should move on."

"Have I scared you?" The man barked out a laugh. "My apologies. I didn't mean to." When the chuckle died, he added, "But you ought to take me up on my offer."

Leonard replied tightly, "No, thanks." 

Why did he have to attract the county psycho? And why was the tire iron locked in the damn trunk? Stupid, Leonard, stupid!

Just as he'd feared, said psycho hummed under his breath and opened his car door.

Shit, shit, shit!

Leonard clutched hard at the lighter in his right hand, prepared to fight or run or do both. The woods were looking more appealing by the second. He could get lost in there but at the same time lose his pursuer.

Psycho's hands went up in a gesture of _oh look, prey's already shitting itself, let's not frighten it further_. "You all right there? You look a little green."

"Get back in the car. I'm carryin'," Leonard warned him.

"So am I."

Oh _fuck_.

Leonard swallowed, set his feet shoulder-width apart, and felt a spark that might be an oncoming adrenaline rush. Run or fight?

The decision was made for him in the form of another pair of headlights. They lit up the far curve of the road from the opposite direction. Leonard saw his chance in that spilt second, didn't think too hard about it, and took off running headlong toward the newcomer.

"Hey!" came the unhappy cry from behind him. "Get back here!"

He heard a second pair of boots hit the asphalt, pound after him. Leonard found an extra burst of speed from the pure adrenaline now pumping full-force through his veins and let his long legs eat up the distance. The second car came into full view; it was dark enough in color to blend in with the nighttime except for the way the moon was reflected on its hood. Whoever was driving saw Leonard, or saw something human-shaped running at the car. It slowed down, braking to a stop some yards away.

Leonard pushed himself to cover that last bit of distance as quickly as he could. _He would make it, he would make it, he would—_

The driver got out. 

Leonard noticed the trench coat first, a plain tie peeking underneath. Then he saw the dark hair and the face made of unforgiving angles. He pulled up short in horror.

Spock stared back, saying nothing, giving nothing away in his expression or his eyes. His fingers, however, clenched around the frame of the car door. Since Leonard couldn't make sense of much in the dark, he imagined the knuckles had turned white with suppressed rage.

It was only when Spock's gaze shifted past Leonard that the spell broke between them. Leonard remembered he was supposed to breathe. Ironically, he couldn't take in enough air.

Spock spoke with a deadly calm as he pushed aside the flap of his coat to reveal a holster strap. "Drop the weapon."

Leonard almost laughed, knowing it must be panic that was causing his hands to shake. Gun, what fucking gun? Like Spock needed that excuse...

Then he heard the gun being cocked behind him and the words that followed it: "No can do... _Fed_."

Spock took aim with his own handgun from behind the car door.

Leonard immediately skittered to the side, because he had no idea what was happening (except for the fact he was fairly certain Spock wanted to _murder_ him), but the muzzle of Spock's weapon didn't follow him. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of his crazy would-be assailant in the ball cap. The man was grinning behind his bushy beard and bearing a shotgun across the crook of his arm. 

Where the hell had he pulled _that_ from? 

Spock's eyes narrowed. "Drop the weapon, sir."

Leonard shuffled back a little farther from the stand-off, swallowing his next curse, and took a moment to delineate his odds. When he focused on Spock, he observed with some surprise that the frenetic, dark energy was missing. Spock was ordinary—or as ordinary as federal agents generally were. 

But the other guy was not ordinary. Leonard was pretty sure the eyes of a normal man didn't glow that vividly in the dark.

Leonard's scrutiny did not go unnoticed. "So what's it gonna be now?"

It took Leonard a second to realize _he_ was being asked that question. "What?"

The man had a toothy grin. He didn't once take his eyes off Spock, even when speaking to somebody else. "Do you want a ride or not, kid?"

If this was a dream, it was the worst dream ever. But Leonard knew there wasn't any point in pinching himself. He had never felt wider awake. 

A sense of expectation filled the air. Leonard had to give an answer—so he gave the only one that made sense when Spock was a permanent fixture in the corner of his eye. "Yeah," he agreed, if cautiously, "I want the ride."

Beard Guy stopped smiling then. Spock hadn't been smiling to begin with. Leonard wondered of the two who was going to die first. He figured it was a given he would be the second person to die, at any rate.

"Good choice."

The man must have moved, then, but Leonard didn't see it happen. In the next second Leonard was looking down the barrel of the shotgun. 

For some reason, the line of Spock's mouth pressed flatter.

"Here's how this'll go, Fed," Spock's target announced. "You can kill me, but I'll kill him too and then you'll be out all the fun of making this bastard beg for his life—unless, of course, you don't care how he dies. Then be my guest and shoot him first. I won't even take advantage of the moment."

Spock said nothing. For his part, Leonard couldn't think of anything to say. He doubted he was capable of it anyway. His mouth was desert-dry.

"Okay then. You made your choice. Smart. Kid, scoot this way." It took longer than it normally would for Leonard's legs to obey. Leonard was urged, "A little faster now, if you please."

When Leonard was within an arm's length, he was positioned in front of the man as a human shield. This was how it worked in hostage situations, his mind readily supplied. Sweat slid down the side of Leonard's face; more of it made its way down between his shoulder blades and stained the shirt under his arms. 

It seemed important to say, "This is great, really fuckin' great." 

Only with his luck would he end up with a gun digging in his side and the son of the man he supposedly killed watching his every move with the intensity of a hawk tracking a field mouse. And for reasons unknown, Spock hadn't shot him yet, which in and of itself was insane.

Leonard didn't think things could get any worse—until, that is, his captor started to lead him backwards.

"Don't drag your feet," he ordered Leonard. 

Leonard did his best to comply, though he did stumble once or twice. Spock, for some reason, left the protection of his car door to follow their progress down the road. In the interim, the agent had lowered and re-holstered his gun. His stoic expression was the one thing which remained unchanged. It made him that much eerier where the light touched his face.

Finally, they reached the car Leonard had had reservations about getting into in the first place. By that point, he had tried to convince himself this was rather a smart plan to get away from Spock, except that it hinged on Spock not wanting somebody to shoot Leonard besides himself. Leonard decided not to focus on that part too much or for too long because the more he thought about it, the more confused he became. 

He got into the car without being told. Seconds later, the driver-side door swung open and his partner-in-crime climbed in.

"Well, that was fun." The man smirked, then unexpectedly leaned back out of the open door, leveled the shotgun and took aim.

Leonard shouted, "No!" without thinking and leapt over the gear stick. But he was too late. The gun went off with a loud _crack_ , followed by a softer _pop_.

"Fuck!" Leonard twisted around to see out the rear window, almost afraid of what he would find.

Miraculously Spock was still on his feet, a monolith in the dark. Leonard's gaze discovered the real victim: a tire of Spock's car. He stared at it, disbelieving.

The driver-side door was pulled shut and the shotgun tucked away by the man's feet. "Time to roll!" the tire-killer announced, then threw the car out of park. They shot forward down the highway, Spock quickly becoming a figure in the distance.

For a long time, Leonard didn't know what to say and so let silence do the speaking for him. The engine gunned, then after a mile took to rattling and wheezing before it leveled out again. After Leonard guessed they had traveled at least five miles, his probable axe-murderer—and ironically his savior—reached out to flip on a black radio fixated atop the dashboard. Its speaker spat out static and the occasional voice, which relayed orders in code.

"Police scanner," Leonard named the device, startled to hear himself.

"Yup," agreed his companion. "Some trucker called in your locale about thirty minutes ago. Since I was in the area, I figured I ought to check it out." He glanced sidelong at Leonard as he drove. "Breathe easy, McCoy. Open the glove box. Have a drink. You look like shit."

Leonard tugged at the glove box without thinking and removed a flask. He uncapped it and took a healthy swallow of its contents. The liquor was fouler than what he was used to.

It was only after he savored the burn of alcohol in his gut that Leonard turned cold. The flask fell out of numb fingers to the seat beside him. "My name—how did you know my name?"

"There're things I just know," the man remarked. "More importantly, be glad it's me who saw you first. You were shining like a damn beacon out there. Something a lot less friendly could have found you before the sun came up." There was a short pause. "You're shaking, kid. Because of the Fed—or me?"

"Both," Leonard admitted.

"Then you can stop on my account—scout's honor." Even in the dim lighting of the car, Leonard could see the amusement on the guy's face. "It's true I was out hunting, but not for the likes of you."

Leonard felt clammy, stretched-thin. His stomach didn't seem to like the liquor after all. _Spock_ , the name came to him mindlessly. He saw again the gun in Spock's hands, not pointed at him. Those hands had been remarkably steady. 

Vaguely Leonard wondered why his voice sounded so far away when he spoke. "Who were you hunting for?"

"Not who. What." A low chuckle. "Instead there was you, sitting smack-dab in the middle of prime territory."

"I'm not sure I understand." Leonard blinked; his vision had doubled.

"You will eventually. Hey, it's all right." A hand crossed the distance between them and pressed on Leonard's forehead until the back of his head connected with the seat. "You just take a little nap."

Leonard struggled to find words. "Y-You..." He recalled the bitter taste on his tongue. "...drugged...?"

"Sorry," apologized the man, who hadn't even offered a name and who didn't sound sorry at all. "Don't worry, though. If I wanted you dead, I would have left you with your Fed friend." Then he laughed and kept on laughing like he had told the world's funniest joke.

Leonard's hearing began to fade in and out. His head was too heavy to hold up; he let it slump to the side. Something buzzed nearby, like a gnat.

But it wasn't a gnat, not at all. A phone, he recognized through a haze. The call was answered by the guy at the wheel, who somehow could talk and laugh in the same breath. 

" _Decker here. Chris! About damn time you called!_ "

No, no. Chris? It couldn't be. Christine was with Joanna, and Joanna—dear god, Joanna—

What was Leonard doing, drugged up to the gills in a psychopath's car while his daughter's time was running out? But his body wouldn't move. His fingers barely even twitched.

" _...won't believe what I found._ " Another staccato burst of laughter. " _...might get us what we need after all...that son of a bitch...get it next time..._ "

Leonard moaned.

" _...who? Oh, him. No, kid's fine...small dose...aye-aye, captain...in an hour, 'til then._ " 

Leonard didn't want to hear anymore, didn't want to think, so he gave up. He was as good as dead anyway, like his girl. He should have told Spock to go ahead and shoot him.

Thankfully, at that point, the world went away completely.

* * *

  
In his dream, wind rushed through trees. The wood was red, the leaves black, and something pale flowed down—

Water. 

It was the color of clover that grew wild by the roadside. Where it puddled, tendrils of smoke rose. If he stayed asleep, that smoke would take a shape, eyes and ears and a long snout. It would breathe a coldness that smelled like death.

Far, far away, on the other side of the trees, someone screamed. Metal crashed. He tasted gunpowder. 

Jim snapped awake. 

At first he was certain the creature had already escaped, was in fact looking down at him, but the misty white vision of its face dispelled. He sat up.

He was unclothed. His feet and lower legs were dirty as if he'd been running through mud. He didn't turn his hands over to inspect them. He knew what they would look like. Silently, he slipped from his bed and padded to the bathroom.

There, he washed off the blood.


	7. Part Six

"Still pissed?" The man asking didn't seem particularly upset about the notion that Leonard might be. 

To make the point that he was in fact still pissed (beyond that, actually), Leonard continued staring silently through the windowpane at the morning fog. He had never seen the fog so thick. If he got loose, got away, Decker would never find him. The asshole deserved to run face-first into a tree.

Said asshole behind Leonard laughed, a thing the man seemed extremely fond of doing. Leonard was certain now it meant the guy was genuinely insane. 

"Don't bother," Decker told him. "By the time I did catch up to you, you'd probably be dead or worse."

"What're you, a mind-reader now?"

"I'm just sayin'... there are bad things beyond these walls, Mr. McCoy. You'd be smarter to stay with me."

"Yeah well, fuck you."

Decker ( _Matt_ , the man had named himself but Leonard didn't want to pretend to be friends with the person holding him hostage) came to stand beside Leonard's chair. His eyes glowed.

Leonard met the reflection of those eyes in the glass, unnerved and also fairly certain he shouldn't look into Decker’s gaze directly, just like how a man wasn't supposed to look into the sun. "If you would give me some clue why you won't let me go, I might try to be understanding."

"No you wouldn't."

Leonard snorted because that was more than true. He didn't want to be understanding. He wanted to get the hell away from this backwoods cabin. It was small and dank, and the door looked damn flimsy to be the only thing between them and one of Decker's 'monsters.' 

Not that Leonard believed there were monsters in these parts, other than the guy at his back. He asked almost plaintively, "When's that friend of yours get here?"

"I thought you had an aversion to me and my friends."

"From where I'm sitting, if I have to pick between you assholes, the guy I don't know seems like the saner choice."

Decker's teeth were a flash of white behind his beard. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You would," Leonard retorted. He rattled the handcuffs binding him to his chair. "How about removing one of these?"

"You look like you know how to pick a lock... so, no. Better for you to stay there until Chris gets a good look at you."

"Of course. And I get a bullet in the head if he doesn't like what he sees."

Decker shrugged. 

Leonard cursed under his breath and glared at the faint line of trees he could barely see through the fog. He could have been in Riverside hours ago. Instead his car was in a ditch, he had up-close and personal confirmation Spock was on his tail, and now he was a kidnap victim. 

"If I had my own gun," he snarled, "I'd find that fucking deer and shoot it between the eyes. This is some bullshit!" Angrily he jerked at the handcuffs; the metal didn't give in the slightest, nor did the wood of the chair.

Decker started to say something, perhaps an insistence concerning the 'deer', but they both heard the distant slam of a car door. In the next instant Decker had a shotgun lifted to his shoulder, cocked, and trained on the cabin door.

Leonard twisted around as best he could, both to see the door and Decker, demanding, "Where the hell does that thing come from?"

"Keep your mouth shut," Decker warned him, "otherwise I can't concentrate."

Leonard's heart rate decided to increase on its own. He swallowed so his mouth wouldn't seem so dry. "It's probably the guy you said was coming over."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

 _Please don't shoot anyone_ , Leonard thought, feeling sick all of a sudden. _Please, please don't shoot anyone._ He didn't think he could stomach seeing someone's brains all over the wall. That was the kind of thing he couldn't fix.

A pair of footsteps stopped just outside on what Leonard assumed was a porch; because the sun was rising on that side of the cabin, the legs of the newcomer cast a shadow under the door. The silence in the room grew thick.

On a nearby table, Decker's cell phone rang. The man slowly shuffled in that direction but never took his line of sight down the barrel of his gun from the door. He squatted slightly and hit the Answer button with the tip of his elbow.

A voice said, " _Are you going to shoot me or let me in?_ "

"Thinking about both."

Leonard wasn't certain if that was possible but he wisely held his tongue.

" _Open the door, Matt._ " That seemed partly command and partly exasperation.

Decker stayed silent for some seconds before relenting. "Fine, but I'll give you fair warning—whether you're my good pal or some fucker wearing his face, I can and will kill you." Then he lowered his gun and went to the door.

Rather than opening it as Leonard expected, Decker stood in front of it and muttered something. A second later the knob turned, the door opened, and sunlight cut into the gloom of the cabin's interior.

"Goddamn," Leonard said, staring at the back of Decker's head. "Please tell me you aren't a witch."

"He's not," replied the man who had stepped inside.

"Though I did have the opportunity to become the familiar of one," Decker cut in, smirking. He tapped the side of the shotgun's muzzle against the newcomer's chest. "What's the secret password?"

"There is no secret password, and you already broke the ward." The man, amused if the look in his eyes was anything to go by, was taller than Decker by a few inches, leaner, and older. Despite that he sported a peppering of grey at his temples, Leonard had the impression the fellow still had sharp reflexes, enough to defend himself against any attack Decker might make. Leonard couldn't decide if that made him feel better or worse.

The man pushed the shotgun away from his person and strode toward Leonard by the window. He introduced himself as Christopher Pike. "You're McCoy," he said.

"What I am is cuffed to a fucking chair," Leonard growled.

Wordlessly Pike pulled a switchblade out of a pants pocket and flipped it open. Leonard's stomach did a flip of its own. But in the next minute, Pike had used with the knife's tip to jimmy open both of Leonard's handcuffs, saying by way of explanation, "He always loses the key."

Leonard rubbed at his sore wrists and eyed the man who had freed him. "Is this the point where you expect me to run? So you can hunt me down and skin me alive or some shit like that?"

"Is it?" asked Pike in return, tone mild. Even his eyes looked calm.

Decker's just looked crazy, especially since Leonard was now free to move about. "Seriously, I'm getting bored here. And confused. Why would you let him go before we question him?"

"About what?" demanded Leonard. "I don't even know who you two goobers are, let alone what you want from me!"

"Matt, you need to shut up for a minute. Don't listen to anything he says, McCoy."

Leonard muttered, "I've tried not to."

"Now…" continues Christopher Pike, dragging another chair over toward Leonard's so they are sitting face-to-face. "I do have some questions for you. Here's one that should be easy: may I call you by your first name? You can call me by mine. Chris, not Christopher, please."

Leonard bared his teeth in what might, vaguely, pass for a pleasant smile. "Sure. Call me _Karl_."

Pike sat back in his chair, amused. "Okay... Karl." Then he drew a piece of paper from the inside of his jacket, unfolded it, and lifted it for Leonard to see. "But I have to wonder... maybe the authorities spelled your name wrong?"

Leonard stared at the Wanted poster bearing his face. "Damn." He looked at Pike. "How long has that been circulating?"

"In these parts? About a month." Pike tucked the paper back into his jacket. "Let's start again. Hi, I'm Chris."

Leonard grimaced. "McCoy... Leonard McCoy."

"From Mississippi?"

"Sometimes. I'm on the road a lot."

Pike crossed his arms, and Decker drifted to stand at the man's back, shotgun tucked in the crook of his arm. He didn't say anything but he grinned. Leonard was well and truly beginning to hate the bastard.

"From what we know, Leonard, you've been on the road for a while. Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois—visiting a lot of lake towns and reserves."

At first, Leonard thought they had found his research and his map but then he remembered he left it in the car by the roadside. "How do you know that?"

"We're hunters, Mr. McCoy, and no matter how the government feels about what we do, our network crisscrosses theirs. If you're on their radar, you end up on ours too." He smiled, and this time Leonard saw nothing friendly in it.

Leonard let his disgust hide the apprehension in his voice. "You're allied with the Feds?" 

"Oh, no," interrupted Decker too cheerfully, "we hate those pig-bastards. We shoot them in the face."

"Matt, I said no talking—or I'll shoot _you_ in the face."

Decker rolled his shoulders like he was looking forward to that scuffle. He stage-whispered to Leonard, "He hides a Magnum in his left boot. Twenty-two caliber. It's quaint."

Indicating Loony Bin with an incline of his head, Leonard asked Pike, "He's not human, is he?"

"Mostly," Pike said, "but never when it counts."

"Fellas, I already know what makes me special." Decker's eyes glinted at Leonard. "I'm more interested in why _he_ is. I told you, Chris, he was lit up like a Central Park Christmas tree."

Leonard tried to make sense of that. "I don't 'light up', you ugly bastard. That was probably my car, or—" He bit off the rest of that sentence, thinking about the thing which had run him off the highway in the first place. It wasn't a deer, but these assholes didn't have to know that.

"Or what?" Leonard was asked. Pike gave him this look like the man had caught an inkling of what he'd been thinking.

Leonard glared at them. "Or hell if I know! A meteor in the sky, or a goddamn spaceship! Why don't you goons make sense for once?"

"Name-calling will get you nowhere, Leonard."

"Except a hole in the ground," added Pike's partner.

Leonard jumped to his feet. "Fuck both of you!"

Pike sighed and leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. "Listen, you seem like a decent guy. I can give you two more chances to be cooperative. After that, I will start breaking your fingers, then your arms, so on and so forth. There are more than enough bones in the human body that we could play this game for quite a while." He stopped as if the pause was to allow Leonard to consider the options. "I'll be honest with you, son... I don't have a taste for torture like I did in my younger years but I _can_ do, and I will, because there are things at stake here that matter more to me than your life."

Knees weak, Leonard sat back down. "You're not very comforting here, Chris."

"I never intended to be comforting. I want answers, and you have them. You want your life, and I can give you that. Fair trade."

Leonard mulled over the possibility that he could make it to the door without a bullet in his back. It didn't seem likely. At length he said, "The first time your certified friend over there said I shone like a beacon I didn't know what he meant, and I still don't. It's true I have… power but—"

"The Mark on you tells me that. What don't I know?"

"—but that doesn't turn me into a goddamn glow stick, except maybe to another person who knows magic." He sucked in a breath and wanted to smack his forehead for being so dumb. "Which, of course, _he has_."

Decker tugged his ball cap low over his eyes and started grinning again.

"You said you weren't a witch!" Leonard accused.

"He's not," Pike repeated.

"Well he sure as hell ain't a mage. I'd feel it, so that leaves only the idiots who _ask_ for power, like life isn't already fucked up enough for those who are born with it! " He focused his attention on Decker. "My god, man, find yourself a house, a wife, and a picket fence. You fuck with magic, it fucks right back with you. They teach that shit in kindergarten these days."

Pike's shoulders were shaking. Leonard realized when Pike pressed his knuckles to his mouth, he was laughing.

"It's not funny," he said, indignant. "My life has been a shithole since I was seven."

Pike's shoulders shook one last time. Then he lifted his head and held out his arm, drawing back his jacket sleeve.

Leonard stared at the scar-tissue on Pike's wrist for a long time before it made sense to him. 

"I understand a lot better than you think I do," the man said. He withdrew his arm and covered his wrist again. "Matt, tell him what you were hunting last night."

Oddly, the mirth in Decker's expression melted away. His grip on his gun tightened, and Leonard had a second to fear somebody was about to get shot.

"There's a... spirit. It looks like a man but it doesn't speak like a man. You could walk past it on the street and you'd never know what it truly was. It—it's been around a long time, on this earth. Too long." For a moment, the man almost seemed to sway in place, gaze turning glassy like he saw something far, far away no one else could. His voice dropped to a whisper. "It's going to start feeding again, Chris, I can feel it. You have to help me." The skin around Decker's eyes grew taut. He closed his eyes as his voice rose again. "Help me stop it!" 

Watching Decker on the cusp of some kind of madness, Leonard could only think to ask, "Does it drown its victims?"

Decker's eyes flew open when he said that—and there was nothing remotely human in them. 

"NO!" Pike shouted half a second before Decker jerked the shotgun into position and fired at Leonard. 

Leonard had dived for the floor the moment he saw Decker in all his mad glory, thinking, _too late, too late, shit, too late!_ Something exploded over his head in the wake of the roar of the gun and rained down upon his head. He kept his face pressed against the floor, waiting for pain, for blackness or whatever it was that came hand-in-hand with death. He heard Pike shout again, maybe Decker's first name or the beginning of a spell, but didn't dare get himself involved.

There came a crack not dissimilar to a gunshot, and a body fell hard onto the floor beside him. It was Decker. The man curled onto his side like a child, clutching at his head and whining in his throat.

"Shit," Leonard heard. Then Leonard was hauled up by the back of his shirt to his feet.

"Consider yourself lucky," Pike said, his face pained and furious. "Now get outside, and stay out while I bind him."

Leonard didn't have to be told twice. He stumbled for the door, pushed out into the innocuously warm sunshine that seeped through the lifting fog, and held onto the porch railing as he threw up in the yard. Once he had gotten down to the bile in his stomach, his heaving stopped and he went for the truck parked by Decker's car.

He was tugging fruitlessly at the door handle of the locked door, feeling fuzzy with shock, before it dawned on him what he was trying to steal. Leonard's hands fell away from the truck and he took a full step back.

"What the _hell_ ," he said, voice strained, staring at the emblem painted on the side. The words below it read: County Sheriff.

It was only then Leonard realized he had somehow landed himself in the mother of all clusterfucks.

* * *

  
Pike exited the cabin alone. When he saw Leonard sitting on the ground, leaning against one of his truck's tires, he said, "You didn't run. You're smart after all."

Leonard threw a weed he had plucked up and twisted between his fingers aside. "What good would that have done? You probably know these roads like the back of your hand. You or one of your boys would have picked me up within an hour... _Sheriff_."

"Very smart. Good." Pike nodded approvingly. He unlocked his vehicle. "Get in."

"Where am I going? Jail?"

"Give me some credit, Leonard. That would be a waste of my time and yours. I'm taking you to your car."

Rocking back on his heels, Leonard eyed the man. "Why?"

"When we get there, I think you'll know."

Leonard looked around, like there might be another way out, but he knew there wasn't. So he climbed in from the passenger-side and buckled himself into the seat. Pike took a moment to change his non-descript jacket for one bearing a badge and fixed a holstered weapon he removed from his glove box to the belt around his waist. Leonard watched all of this without a word, wondering if he hadn't fallen asleep or maybe died after all. It felt damn weird to him, surreal even. 

Pike started the engine, and they left the cabin behind, finally turning from a long dirt road onto a newly paved highway.

Leonard let the silence in the truck cabin stretch until he couldn't stand it anymore. "So how does a Marked become a county sheriff?"

Pike turned the radio dial until the rock station became one that played the Golden Oldies. "He doesn't. That burn on my wrist tracks all the way up my arm. The result of an accident, you understand. To most people, I'm just a man with a scar, not a Mark."

"How?"

"It's a long story."

"Apparently I have time."

Pike huffed, amused. "My ability was discovered when I was in my teens. Back then, it was just the start of the movement against our kind, one that had been building up since the end of the world war. There was incontrovertible proof we existed and it was public, so the government asked itself, 'how do we make certain that we can tell who these people are?' They came up with the Mark. It was a brand on the skin, like a tattoo. They just rounded us up—old and young—by the handfuls if they could. Some people got it who didn't even know what magic was. It was meant to placate the non-mages who had begun to fear us." 

Pike paused, then chuckled. "But their record-keeping sucked. So you could disappear if you knew how, or knew someone who could help you. Unfortunately by the time the next generation came along, yours that is, the government had figured out how they wanted to segregate us from the masses. They stripped our civil rights out of the law and created a body of governance just for one purpose: to watch, contain and, if need be, kill us."

He shook his head. "Every day it worsens like a disease. Children get trackers in their skin. The ones with strong abilities are taken from their families, institutionalized, re-educated. And with the digitalization of all personal information nowadays, the database on us has to have a million copies in a million places, and it's always growing. Once you're in the system, you can't get out." 

Leonard said nothing. There was nothing to say. He imagined his own child having even less freedom than he did. He thought of her locked away and drugged. It hurt him beyond words. It angered him, too.

When Pike spoke again, his tone of voice reflected a somber mood. "When I said I could give you your life, Leonard, I was serious. It wouldn't be easy but there is a chance yet for you to have something... normal."

"But?" Leonard pressed, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

"You have to earn it."

"Of course," he said bitterly. "Nothing's free."

"No, there isn't," Pike agreed matter-of-factly, one hand steady on the steering wheel. "So a man has to know his limits. He has to know what he's willing to pay, how far he's willing to go for what he wants. Tell me about Joanna."

Leonard forgot how to breathe. His fingers dug into the hard fabric of his seatbelt.

"You think about her often," the man next to him went on to say, "and given the _way_ you think about her, I would have to guess she's your child."

"You bastard." Leonard turned to look at the sheriff in horrified realization. "You're the mind-reader!"

Christopher Pike smiled.

"I don't fucking believe it! Stop the fucking car!" He jerked off his seatbelt. "There's no way in hell—" He stopped cold. "Shit. _Decker_. When you said you were going to bind him, you meant..." Leonard paled at the thought.

"He's not sane," Pike said affably, "but I need him—though I have a feeling maybe not as much as I am going to need you." He glanced at Leonard. "That look on your face is uncalled-for. I didn't break his mind. Mind-magic doesn't work like that, no matter what shit they write in the pamphlets these days."

"You're saying he's just off his rocker naturally? Bullshit."

"He was already in pieces when I met him. That thing he hunts so vigilantly? It lured his little brother to a watery grave while he watched, helpless to stop it."

Leonard almost allowed himself a moment of pity for the bastard. Almost. He argued, "He has magic."

"No, Matt carries an illusion of it. Whatever the creature was that he saw may have taken his mind but it left behind a resonance. That's what he follows, has been following for nearly two decades. And it's what makes him seem... like us. But he's not, Leonard."

"No, he's just your mind-puppet."

Pike barked out a laugh.

Leonard didn't see what was so funny. "It's inhumane."

"It's no different than keeping a leash on a murderer. I don't control him. I don't even trick him. I just keep what's left of his sanity from grinding away to dust and let him continue his mission. It's a thankless task, actually." Pike sobered. "But I do it because I want to find that thing as much as he does, possibly more."

Leonard refused to look at Pike, knowing he wanted to ask why but determined he wouldn't. At this point, it made no sense to involve himself in this hunter-thing. He had a difficult job to do as it was, and Joanna was counting on him to do it right. 

"You said you'd take me to my car," he muttered, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I am. You'll see it in another mile or so. It got called into the station."

"By a Fed," Leonard guessed.

But Pike shook his head. "Believe it or not, your agent doesn't seem to be willing to bring attention to his whereabouts. So until he does want us to know where he is and what he's doing, I'm not kicking over that ant hill."

"That's good... I guess." Leonard said slowly, surprised. Did that mean Spock really was on an unsanctioned manhunt? And what was going to happen to Leonard when Spock finally caught him?

He was so lost in his confusion over that, he didn't notice where they were until Pike was pulling alongside a familiar stretch of ditch.

"Son of a bitch," said Leonard. "You kept your word."

"Surprise," echoed the sheriff dryly. As Leonard reached for the door handle, he added, "A word to the wise, Mr. McCoy: don't leave town too soon."

Leonard eyed him, wary. "What if I decide I don't want what you're offering?"

A corner of Pike's mouth tipped upward. "What if you decide you do?"

Leonard expelled an aggravated breath and threw open the passenger-side door. He didn't wait to see Pike drive off and instead stalked to his car. Someone had towed it out of the ditch for him. It sat cold and quiet, one of its headlights cracked; he walked around it but saw no indication of vandalism.

The doors were unlocked. Leonard got in and sat down, hand automatically searching the underside of the seat to find the spare key he had taped there. When his fingers closed around it, he felt inexplicable relief. The car engine turned over after two tries.

Yet it was a long time before he pulled onto the road. Riverside was close but, now, also dangerous. It had something like a curse of its own, and that curse was already wanting to hook into him. He could turn back, should turn back, but... 

Pike was wrong. How could he decide when there was no choice to begin with? 

Car pointed towards Riverside, Leonard drove on.


	8. Part Seven

That night (or day, or what was left of either) Leonard was released by his captors he pulled his car alongside a property that looked abandoned and slept fitfully. His body was still sparking from a long-ago adrenaline, from the memory of Decker's wild eyes and Pike's smooth talk. At last, when he could no longer pretend rest was within his grasp, he drove into Riverside's downtown and bought himself a cup of coffee.

The old brick buildings and quaint, hand-painted business signs were disheartening somehow. It seemed to Leonard if he scratched beneath the veneer of the small town he was likely to find only more small town. Granted, places like these often had more secrets than the big cities did, but nothing struck him as _abnormal_ from the start. In Esterville, and Manna, Illinois before that, he'd felt almost sick to his stomach as soon as he crossed their county lines. While making his way from Kentucky through Missouri, the same wrongness had been there even though it hadn't struck him as strongly, leaving him unsettled. In a way the varying levels made sense now because whatever dark magic had passed through the two states had been gone at least two decades or as long ago as five.

Riverside, as far as Leonard could tell, was free of the resonance completely. That was what bothered him most. 

He found a small park bordering the southernmost street of the downtown area and wandered it, pondering what it would mean if Riverside, currently drowsing under a blanket of early grey fog, didn't have a past connected to the curse-maker he had been tracking. Had his search been doomed from the beginning because it was really the delusion of a desperate father?

He crushed his empty coffee cup in his hand and waited until a young jogger passed him on the sidewalk before meandering off the path. Between two trees, Leonard knelt to touch the ground. It was cold beneath his hand.

And silent. 

_No earth magic, wrong or otherwise._

Strangely, Leonard pictured Spock as he had last seen the man: a tall, lean shadow in a trench coat standing in silence on a rain-soaked road. Did Spock know how the earth felt, how nature strengthened the very seams of the world, every place he went—as his father was rumored to have known? They were both so different for all that they had looked alike. Sarek had worn his power like a great cloak of many colors but in Spock it was muted. Why? Out of habit?

Did the agent's employers know who he really was?

Leonard imagined that they did. Worse yet, he imagined how they knew how to harness that power to their purpose. It would be hell, that was for certain.

He sat back on his heels with a slow, shocked inhale, thinking, _What the heck?_

Had he just felt _sorry_ for the guy trying to kill him?

"You are one giant idiot, Len," Leonard told himself and stood up, unnerved.

Pity kept him from taking advantage of every dumbass that crossed his path who wanted to see what a magic user could do. Compassion, on the other hand, was the most likely to get him killed. Until now, he thought he had stayed well out of that territory. 

Raking a hand through his hair, Leonard started back the way he had come. 

It was guilt—just guilt—that softened his perspective. Leonard had brought death to Sarek's doorstep. Albeit he had done so unknowingly, but still: that didn't make Spock's father any less dead. The man had a right to feel angry and wronged.

Leonard stopped in his tracks and resisted the urge to fist his hands and beat them against his head. What was the matter with him! 

With a determination inherent in his family genes, Leonard forced out any remaining thoughts of the Fed. "Time to find the Davis woman," he declared to the morning air belligerently, as if it might be at fault for Spock's presence in his head.

The air didn't argue back.

* * *

  
The growl came from behind: "You're late." 

Jim paused in his slinking around the edges of the bustling warehouse. He thought, _Fuck you_ , then turned around and smiled to placate his boss.

Said boss eyed Jim's expression and spat to the side. "Third time this week, Kirk."

Jim hated it, absolutely hated it, when people maneuvered the conversation to where he was expected to reply, knowing well full what his limitations were. His fingers curled with a familiar anger but he kept it in check because while punching this asshole might be satisfying, it also meant he would be back to visiting the hell hole that was the local unemployment office. As things stood, there were too few opportunities left in Riverside that paid decently, or legally, and of those even fewer he could qualify for. 

But oh, the temptation to hurt Ed was strong. What would the monster in him do? Render flesh from bone?

Jim chose instead to drop his gaze. It made him angrier to concede in that meek way but there was nothing else he could do.

Ed smirked but backed off, mollified and no doubt assuming he had given his employee the needed reminder that Jim was essentially a charity case for the company. "You're on Caterpillar in number nine."

Jim grimaced and started for the locker room. Of course. Relegation to freezer work was suitable punishment for tardiness. Only to assholes.

"Kirk!" Ed called not a moment later.

Several other workers stopped what they were doing to listen. Jim halted mid-stride, wiping his face clear of emotion in anticipation for the final jab. Ed Towler was the kind of guy who never stopped short of total humiliation.

"Late is still late. I'll expect to see you in the office before you clock out. You can _write down_ your excuse."

Jim heard a snicker to his left and lengthened his stride to carry him as quickly as possible from sight. It was going to be another fucking fantastic day at work, he could already tell. Once inside the men's locker room, he put his back to its other occupants and stripped off his jacket. 

All these bastards would get what was coming to them, he promised himself, temper still at a simmer. And if that day didn't come soon, he would find a way to bring them the white horse. Let them experience firsthand how it felt to be ruined.

Pleased at that thought, Jim smiled thinly at his reflection in the row of dented lockers and zipped up his regulation overalls in preparation for the day's shift.

* * *

  
The County Sheriff's Department looked like shit from the outside, but it was serviceable enough within. Christopher Pike made a detour to the officers' lounge on his way to the small room that served as his private office. They had recently used part of the donations collected from their charity book sale (and hadn't that been a ridiculous affair?) to buy a Keurig machine. By most of his staff's standards, it was an extravagant, nearly illegal purchase. In that first week, no one had known what to do with themselves except stand around the coffee-maker, stroke it lovingly, and plot how they could hide the purchase from the auditors. Chris had been amused by the behavior.

He picked out a plain coffee packet and shoved it into place, then flipped the brew switch. When nothing happened, a bemused Chris slapped the side of the machine with the flat of his hand.

Not so much as a burble. He checked that it was plugged in, and it was.

"All right," the sheriff growled as he turned around. "Who broke it?"

The young woman on the other side of the lounge paused in her perusal of a vending machine's contents. "What was that, sir?"

"This damn thing isn't working!"

His deputy turned to look at it then him critically. "Did you press the start button, Chris?"

"Funny, Uhura," he told her flatly.

She shrugged and headed for the lounge door like a broken coffee-maker wasn't a serious affair, claiming breezily, "I think Hendorff did it."

Chris didn't know whether or not to believe her. Hendorff was certainly cursed around electronics (which is why he wasn't allowed to carry a taser anymore) but on the other hand, Deputy Uhura loathed her new partner. 

Of course, to be fair, Nyota tended to loathe every person Pike partnered her with. He hadn't figured out yet why that was, but to be honest he didn't truly care. She was the least moronic of his deputies. So long as she didn't 'accidentally' shoot a co-worker in the line of duty, she could be displeased with whomever she wanted. He knew from skimming the edges of her mind the emotion was more of a ruse than true hatred anyway.

He returned his attention to the Keurig machine, accusing it, "You're just an expensive piece of shit, aren't you?" He delivered one last smack to its side because, in Pike's world, no morning coffee meant serious morning rage.

The machine hiccupped from the abuse and sputtered steam. Then coffee-colored water began to trickle into the cup positioned below its spout.

"Huh," said Chris, and tucked his hands into his pockets to wait. Ten seconds later, his cell phone buzzed against his fingers. He pulled it out and checked the number on the screen before answering, "Sheriff Pike here."

The man on the other end sounded dazed. "Chris? Hey, uh... I just... woke up?"

The poor fool. "Must've had a rough night. Come to think of it, you didn't look so good when I left." Matt wouldn't know if he did or not, and it was his fault he trusted Christopher not to lie to him.

"Yeah? Yeah, I guess so. My head feels... stuffy. Maybe it's the flu," Decker slurred. "Hey, where's McCoy?"

"I took care of it."

"I don't remember burying a body."

"Hardly," Chris said dryly, taking his now-full cup and sipping at it. "I told you we need him." 

His newest deputy, a fresh-faced Academy graduate by the name of Stiles, entered the lounge. 

"Look, I'm on the clock. We'll talk later."

"Wait, but where—?"

"Riverside," he answered shortly, voice low, "but don't go looking. Kid's already spooked." _That's an order_ , he knew he didn't have to add.

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?" Decker sounded petulant, like a boy deprived of his favorite toy.

The deputy glanced Pike's way in an antsy way. Chris said, "Go hunting." Then he hung up and zeroed in on his companion. "What?"

The young man perked up and shuffled in Chris's direction. "Hey, boss! I followed him, just like you said!"

"And?" Chris demanded, impatient.

"He had breakfast at the joint beside the hotel. Then he went out."

"Where?"

"I followed him as far as Downers Road before I was called to break up a domestic dispute."

Chris thought about that for a moment. "I know there's an old mill out there."

Deputy Stiles agreed, having lived in Riverside all of his life. "Sure, but the factory part is closed up. The warehouses got sold and turned into a distribution center for some big chain-store. That's a good thing, you know? Employs lots of folk, even though the economy's down."

"'Course," Chris said, clasping a hand to the young man's shoulder as he headed for the door. "Good job, son. Make sure to have a cup of coffee before you head back out."

Stiles' face lit up at the mention of the new coffee-maker. "Yes, sir!"

Chris smiled to himself outside the lounge, but that smile faded as he walked toward his office. Between Stiles' report and what Chris knew which made that warehouse operation off Downers Road significant, events were happening faster than he liked and not necessarily in a way that would end well. Soon, he wasn't going to have a choice in what he had do. It would mean he had to destroy the very person he once promised to protect. 

If Winnie was watching him from the afterlife, he imagined she was going to be pissed.

* * *

  
Warehouse work had several downsides but there was one upside which was very important to Jim Kirk. His assignments were often quiet and solitary, and Jim preferred it that way—until his preference came back to bite him in the ass, that is.

Jim heard the red alarm go off above the door and had a split second to think that some jackass was locking him inside the freezer out of idiocy or maliciousness. He threw his Caterpillar into reverse. It protested this with a squeal of gears but still obeyed, backing down a long row of finished product which he had been organizing by lot number with a speed that rivaled newer models. Boxes spilled off the wooden pallet attached to Caterpillar's forks as they flew. At the last second, Jim jerked the steering wheel to the right and swung the forklift free of the row with a blare of his horn, then switched the machine into drive.

He almost ran over a man in his blind panic. 

Jim let out an unintelligible shout of alarm and slammed on the brakes. Caterpillar skidded to a sudden stop, and the momentum threw Jim forward into the steering wheel. He clutched at it in silent pain, staring at the guy he had just about hit. For the briefest of moments, when their eyes connected, there was an angry buzzing in Jim's ears and a word in his throat.

He swallowed it down, released his death grip on the steering wheel and clambered down from the forklift. 

At the same time, the stranger unfroze and stepped out of the path of the forklift to meet him. "Do you always drive so recklessly, Mr. Kirk?" he asked Jim.

Jim halted in the process of going forward to check if the man was all right, instantly wary that the person knew his name but he couldn't say the same. The stranger inclined his head ever-so-slightly as though he had heard what Jim was thinking. 

"I am Mr. Spock. I was told where to find you by your supervisor, Mr. Towler." Mr. Spock turned to look behind him and added, tone oddly dry, "My escort seems to have disappeared."

Jim looked towards the open doorway as well. The clear plastic flaps which were meant to contain the cold air of the freezer were perfectly motionless. Jim narrowed his eyes and peeled off his hard hat. 

It was probably Finnegan who had sent the man in here, sans safety gear, and set off the alarm, knowing how Jim would react. He would be back in the main building by now, laughing his ass off with friends who had a smaller IQ than he did.

The pranks were becoming more and more dangerous. 

"Mr. Kirk?"

Jim returned his attention to his visitor, feeling a coating of shame that he couldn't apologize outright for nearly running the man down. He squared his shoulders and held out his hand.

Mr. Spock shook it briefly, like a person unused to and not comfortable with physical contact. That suited Jim fine. He didn't like touching people either. He had been an affectionate child, his mother had often reminded him, before his accident.

 _Accident_. Jim's mouth twisted at the very word.

"You have a lunch break in six minutes." 

Mr. Spock stated the fact like he knew Jim's schedule better than Jim did. It was disconcerting. Even more disconcerting, Jim thought, was the fact that Spock (for he couldn't refer to the man as a mister in his head) gave the distinct impression he intended to share that lunch break with Jim.

Even if Jim didn't agree to the company.

Jim ran his fingers through his hair which had flattened against his forehead and shoved his hard hat back into place. Then he gestured at Caterpillar and climbed on. Spock stepped around the side of the forklift, inspecting it with apparent distrust, before his eyes hooded slightly at the singular seat—which Jim was currently in.

Abruptly, he met Jim's gaze. "I am aware that you do not talk."

Jim didn't know what to make of that. After a moment, he patted the handle bar built into the side of the cabin. With an air of resignation, Spock removed his long coat and folded it over one arm. He stepped up onto the footpad and gripped the bar with both hands.

Jim gave him a quirk of the mouth which meant _hang on_.

Caterpillar might have been beyond her years but she still worked like a champ. Jim made a detour to set down the pallet in his current work area; then they were off. The moment the forklift took a left turn out of the freezer, Jim shuddered with relief at the onslaught of warmer air. He had his coat and work gloves on, both heavy enough to withstand serious Midwestern snow days, but after spending half a shift in one of the freezers, nothing could prevent the coldness which settled into a man's bones. 

Technically no employee in inventory or shipping was supposed to spend more than an hour in a freezer at a time. Yet nobody ever pushed Jim to follow that rule. Jim didn't like to think too hard about why, especially given that his disability limited his options to call for help. With the same disregard he had been given the walkie-talkie he carried. The device made him look like every other worker but it was essentially a useless tool in his hands.

He took them through the tunnel that ran the length of the warehouse until it reached the main thoroughfare which branched out into various shipping docks. Spock had not said a word for the duration of their trip. He looked ill-at-ease hitching a ride on the side of a forklift.

Whatever reason the man had for seeking him out must be an important one, decided Jim, to forgo complaint.

They pulled into one of the only shipping docks Jim frequented with any sort of regularity. As expected, the door to a small office area hidden behind a large weight scale swung open upon his arrival, and a teenager bounded out with a cry of "Jim!"

The enthusiasm with which Pavel Chekov said his name almost made Jim smile. He put Caterpillar into park and turned her off but obviously not quick enough for Spock, who had been flat-footed on the ground and shrugging back into his coat before the forklift had rolled to a complete stop. 

Jim jumped down beside the man and held out Caterpillar's keys to the bright-faced Pavel.

"It is time for food, _da?_ " the teen said. 

Pavel's Russian accent was thick enough to make only half of his question sound like English but Jim understood him well enough. Maybe he liked Pavel because they had that inability to communicate effectively in common. He nodded.

The teenager's attention transferred to Jim's guest, who looked out of place in his suit, tie, and polished shoes. "Who are you?" he asked, eyes wide with curiosity.

"I am Spock."

Jim wondered why Spock had dropped the formalities.

Chekov's eyes grew impossibly wider. "You are Government!" 

The declaration was enough to startle Jim. He looked at Spock again, certain he couldn't have missed something so obvious.

Spock said, unperturbed, "Your assessment is correct. I am employed by United States federal government."

Jim felt his face heat. He pivoted on his heel and started to walk away. 

What the fuck had he been thinking? Where had his sense gone? Since when did he automatically assume people seeking him out was a good thing?

_Government._

Bitterness rose in Kirk's throat.

What reason did Uncle Sam have to come after him? He'd been summarily rejected from enlistment in the Army because he was a mute. No, they wouldn't want him unless—

He saw red. It wasn't on his hands, but it was like a haze across his vision.

_He was no one's experiment._

All it took was for a hand catching Jim's arm to set him off. He turned around, fist flying, but found himself in the next instant face down on the ground, one arm twisted behind his back and a shoe planted into the curve of his spine. 

"Calm down, Mr. Kirk," the Fed ordered.

Jim struggled until his arm threatened to pop out of its socket and the pain was overwhelming. Only then did he slap the concrete as a fighter did in the ring to concede and bow out. Spock let him go.

Jim rolled over and glared at the agent. He didn't take Spock's offer of assistance in helping him up. In the background, Pavel along with several others, were staring, mouths open. None of them looked like they dared intervene.

Spock said, irritatingly matter-of-fact, "I need to speak with you."

The only flippant non-verbal reply Jim was good at included his middle finger. 

Spock didn't seem particularly affected by the vulgar gesture. He did, however, lower his voice. "It is a matter of urgency." Jim would have ignored that except, after a strange scrutinizing stare, Spock added quietly, "I won't take much of your time, _Mr. Davis_."

Jim didn't think twice. He grabbed Spock by the elbow and hauled the infuriating bastard out of earshot of the others. They exited the building via a side ramp beside the open dock. Jim released Spock then, once they were outside, and stalked across the parking lot toward a small picnic area that some workers favored for a smoking break. Gravel crunched under his steel-toed boots.

Two people were already leaning against a table. When they saw Kirk coming, they stubbed out their cigarettes, grabbed their cell phones, and left.

The shunning would have hurt Jim years ago. It didn't touch him now. He went to the farthest table and leaned against it, expression bordering dangerous.

"I am sorry," Spock apologized right off the bat, which slightly surprised his companion.

Jim rubbed at his sore shoulder.

The agent gave him a knowing look. "That, unfortunately, could not be avoided but it is not the regret to which I refer. I understand your mother changed your legal name in order to protect you and thus, by voicing it, I have risked exposing your secret without first consulting you."

Jim crossed his arms as a sign that he didn't feel forgiving and stared.

Spock's stare was equally unrelenting. "Allow me to explain my presence here, Mr. Kirk. I will endeavor to be brief. Also, any question I may ask you will require only a yes or a no. Does this suffice?"

Jim had the gut feeling this guy wasn't going to go away if he indicated no. So he nodded.

The agent drew something from the inside of his coat. It was a headshot of a displeased-looking man. "Have you encountered this individual?"

Jim shook his head.

Spock tucked the picture away again. "Then you must be informed this man will attempt to contact you within the next few days. He is currently under federal investigation, concerning matters which I may not disclose; however, you may assume he is dangerous. His... determination should not be underestimated under any circumstance. Do you understand?"

Jim didn't, not at all. He nodded anyway.

"If he contacts you, Mr. Kirk, I need to be notified immediately." Spock produced a standard white business card, blank except for a phone number. He held it out. "Can I trust that you will do so?"

Jim took the card, on the verge of laughing. He wanted to tell the guy that trust was always a lie. Jim didn't trust Spock. Spock would be the government's stupidest federal agent if he wanted to waste his time trusting Jim. 

Jim ran a thumb contemplatively along the black embossed numbers across the card, then flipped it over to its blank side. He retrieved the pen he carried with him out of necessity and wrote, _Why me?_ It was a question that covered a lot of ground. Spock's answer would likely be interesting.

The man was silent for some seconds before he said, "You may provide him with an answer to a mystery he was given to solve."

 _What mystery?_ Jim thought, letting the question show clearly on his face.

Spock's expression shuttered to a complete blankness. "The nature of the mystery is irrelevant, Mr. Kirk. If the man in the photograph should appear in your vicinity, you will report it to me." His tone of voice was a command and a dismissal.

Jim didn't move and stared at the agent simply out of spite at being ordered around. Spock was the first one to break their eye contact and walk away. This satisfied Jim immensely. He hopped up onto the edge of the picnic table and watched Spock go. He stayed at the table, swinging his right leg in an absent motion for a while. The people who came outside to take a smoke break but didn't want to sully themselves by being near him were greatly annoyed by his lazing about in their area. One of them would report him to Finnegan, and Finnegan would think it was his duty to concoct another hare-brained scheme to deliver payback.

Jim didn't care. He left the picnic table five minutes before the end of his lunch break, just as a police cruiser was doing a slow drive-by along the main road, and snagged an apple and Caterpillar's keys from Pavel inside the shipping dock. He was on his way back to the freezer having come to the conclusion that whoever was in the headshot wanted to find him because he was a Davis. Spock had found him for that reason, after all, so it stood to reason Mystery Guy thought it was important too.

But Jim wasn't a Davis anymore. He was a fucking Kirk, which had something to do with his unknown father whom his mother had never talked about, not when he was a kid and not when he was certain he was old enough to handle the truth. Then she disappeared one night in his twentieth year and was found dead two days later inside her locked car, taking the secret of his father's identity with her.

A tragedy, the Riverside news had called it. A tragedy and an unsolved mystery.

Jim knew way too much about both of those things. And here was someone bringing him more of the latter. 

The tragedy part, he decided, biting hard into his apple, would be all theirs.

* * *

  
Leonard hated his luck—honest to god _hated_ it.

The town hall records turned up no Winona Davis in Riverside. The phone book was no help either. In case she had married, Leonard had tried searching for her son’s name but nothing beginning with a J, not even John, appeared under Davis. If they both had new aliases, or never even moved here like the old man in Esterville had told him, Leonard knew he was stuck on this wild-goose chase for good.

Back at his car, he plucked a yellow parking ticket off his windshield, kicked at a nearly bald tire and clambered inside. He smoked two cigarettes in rapid succession, using the butt of the last one to turn the ticket into ash. Then he sat in silence for half an hour, struggling with his disappointment and darting glances at the glove box where he'd stashed his new burner phone. In the end, he knew he couldn't use it. Calling someone was simply too risky, no matter how much he needed to hear a familiar voice.

The decision cost him another piece of his sanity and three more cigarettes. 

He had no idea if Joanna was better or worse or just the same, and no idea what his dad thought about Christine showing up, if she truly had. He couldn't get a report on whether or not Clay was keeping his promise to act like a doctor who gave a damn.

All-in-all, Leonard concluded, this last day of August was closure to a miserable failure of a month, and he wasn't sorry to see it go, with the exception that it meant his little girl had one day less to live. September had better be the month of miracles.

He drove to a motel, booked a room for a week with a credit card that wasn't his, and slept on a musty bed for three hours before he peeled himself off of its sheets and took a shower. The sun was past its zenith when he emerged from his room in a different pair of jeans and t-shirt. Leonard stood a moment in hesitation by his car, only then remembering Spock knew what he was driving. 

"Damn," he muttered. It had to go. 

He took the car to an auto repair shop on the far side of town, dropping it off with some vague excuse that it made a funny noise (which was true, actually) and giving them a false name and number to call when they figured out what was wrong. Eventually, once the shop-owners realized he wouldn't be back, they would have it impounded; then later either the car would be sold or scrapped for parts. 

Leonard caught a bus and rode it back to the downtown area, thinking he could try again to pull off the trick of talking with locals to find out about a woman named Winona. He didn't think it was a common name, so he had some hope that he might succeed.

* * *

  
There was nothing edible in the house but stale bread and cans of mushy pet food. Annoyed that he had once again forgotten he needed to go grocery-shopping until the moment he was home, Jim exchanged his leather jacket for a grey hoodie, scratched his cat Jinx briefly on the head, and trudged back out to his mother's car (not his, he'd never think of it as his) for a trip he hated to make. Cashiers were always so curious, no matter how often they saw his face.

It took him less than a minute to realize he was being followed. A quick glance in the rearview mirror confirmed the black, unmarked vehicle two cars behind him. It looked like Spock didn't trust him after all. 

Jim smirked and changed lanes. What kind of fun could he have with this? 

Speeding up, he cut someone off and ran a yellow light. Horns blared. He grinned, liking this sudden, newfound excitement.

After a succession of left and right turns, which surprisingly Spock figured out no matter how randomly Jim made them, Jim ran a red light, narrowly avoiding collision with a Mack truck (he laughed at the near-miss) and swerved off the highway, backing with the ease of someone who had once been a juvenile deliquent into a dark corner of a gas station. Less than a minute later, the black sedan drove by a snail's pace but it kept going.

Jim raised his middle finger in salute. "You're ugly, your dick's small, and everybody's afraid to fuck your mother!"

The speech was garbled, nonsense to his own ears, but he threw his head back and laughed hysterically anyway. It was some minutes before he could calm himself down enough to give the appearance he was in his right mind. 

Since the agent was looking for him, Jim backtracked a couple of miles then took an obscure route only locals knew to a supermarket he rarely shopped at. He entered the building with caution but was pleasantly surprised when no one paid him any attention and spent more time than he normally would have pondering the variety of tv dinners in the frozen food section. Then he puttered towards the in-store bakery, because the cakes looked good and his cat liked frosting almost as much as he did. His stomach took that moment to remind him he hadn't eaten more than an apple in over twelve hours. By the time he rolled his cart to the Self Check-Out, he knew he was way over his budget. It didn't seem to matter.

Life was good for Jim Kirk until he unloaded his groceries into the trunk of his mother's car. Then he started to shut the trunk lid and caught sight of a person exiting the bus at the bus stop.

At first, Jim thought he was hallucinating, that the federal agent had wound his brain up with all the subterfuge. But, after ducking down by his car, Jim thought _fuck it_ , and stood back up for a second glance.

It was the man in the photograph, no doubt about it. Nobody else Jim had ever seen looked that particular blend of homeless and constipated. Jim watched the guy stand about like an odd duck on the sidewalk as the bus rattled away, slowly surveying his surroundings with a frown. Beyond the mystery of his presence, he looked as ordinarily human as anyone.

Then his head turned in Jim's direction. Jim automatically held his breath in anticipation of being seen but that intense stare skipped right past him. It was such a great disappointment not to be recognized, Jim started forward in anger.

"Why, it's little Jimmy!" a voice crowed before he had taken two steps.

An old woman, clinging to the arm of an older man, tottered directly into his path.

Jim recognized her almost instantly, and his stomach sank. He went back to holding his breath.

"Oh, how are you?" she asked him, only immediately to correct herself. "My my, I'm sorry, dear. I know you can't answer that. Poor thing. Still seems just like yesterday your mama came into our Petey's store, dragging you by the ear 'cause you'd—"

Mrs. Addison's husband shushed his wife quickly like he was afraid talking about Winona Kirk might cause Jim to burst into tears in the middle of a busy parking lot.

Jim gave the couple a tight-lipped smile. 

The woman, someone he remembered that his mother had genuinely liked, reached out to clutch sympathetically at his arm. Jim moved away so she couldn't touch him, and his message was received loud and clear. Mr. Addison shook his white-haired head slowly but said nothing, mouth pressed thin, and urged his wife to move along to the supermarket entrance. 

She bid Jim goodbye, maybe adding that she hoped he was doing all right, but Jim couldn't seem to hear all her words. It was the pity in her eyes that held him fast. It had more power to hurt than cruelty or indifference. When he couldn't stand that pity any longer, he slammed the trunk lid closed with unnecessary force and leapt into the car. He had to get away. People were staring again, all of them, remembering who he was.

* * *

  
Fingering the small change in his pocket, Leonard thought long and hard about going into the grocery store and buying a ready-made sandwich. Just as he had come to a decision, a ugly tan Bonneville almost flattened him in its wild flight across the parking lot. He threw a small rock after it and cursed the driver. The rock plinked off the license plate. 

Fucking morons! They were in every town.

As he entered the market, Leonard inspected the hand with which he'd caught himself on the pavement and grimaced at the scraped skin and blood. Food would have to wait a little longer. He spied the sign that read Restrooms and set out towards it, already making plans to filch a bottle of disinfectant off the shelf on the way. Time and experience had taught him that it was always smart to cleanse an open wound before healing it, because sealing skin wasn't the same as preventing infection.

Leonard sighed to himself, weary all of a sudden and feeling like he'd only just met the beginning of his trouble in Riverside.

What would be next? 

He realized he wasn't looking forward to finding out.


	9. Part Eight

_Sept 2013_

What he was doing in the wood at night was a mystery. Leonard looked around, at the ground under his feet, through the trees. There was not much left alive; things were withering, dying back, in retreat for a long winter. He had a moment to think this place looked familiar, but perhaps it was the darkness that made it like any other wood he had seen.

He started to walk. An icy wind gusted past him, stirring up a great mass of leaves. As he bent sideways to shield his face, he caught a glimpse of startling green near his feet. He leaned down to see it better.

"I must wonder how far you will follow this path."

Leonard picked up the holly leaf and turned around. "How'd you get here?" he asked, not shocked, yet uncertain why he wasn't.

Sarek stared deeply into Leonard, asking in turn, "How did you?" With hands folded behind his back and a serene countenance, the man looked exactly as he had alive. He wore a robe of the darkest brown. The smell of earth grew strong. 

"You're dead," Leonard said. "I killed you."

Sarek did not react.

He tried again with "Your son—", only to falter. The sharp points of the holly leaf dug into the flesh of his palm.

"What of Spock?" questioned Sarek.

"He's going to kill me. I'm sorry, and he's still going to kill me."

The mage watched Leonard for a long moment, then held out his hand. Without knowing why, Leonard gave him the leaf. Sarek closed his fingers around it. When his hand opened again therein rested a skeleton key.

"Iron," Sarek explained, "to keep you safe. Sometimes the small protections give us the greatest power."

Leonard took the key. He rubbed at his burning eyes in consternation. "I don't understand why you would help me."

"You are helping yourself, Leonard. I only ask in return, for the sake of my son, that you do him no harm."

"Harm?" Leonard spoke the word sharply, then added with alarm, "Wait, you can't leave!" as Sarek stepped backward into a oddly shaped shadow, a doorway. Leonard's hand met open air instead of a robed arm, for Sarek had become incorporeal in a matter of seconds. He stumbled, falling to his knees, the plea he issued nonsensical: "I'm not supposed to be here. How do I get out? _Goddamn it_ , I said wait! I need to tell Spock that you're alive!"

Sarek was gone. The trees melted. Decaying leaves curled into themselves and vanished until there was only darkness and a wind where none should be.

 _Wake_ was a command in Leonard's ear.

He opened his eyes to find himself staring at a door, except it was not the same door through which Sarek had disappeared. It was ordinary, built from wood instead of an ink-like blackness.

It was his motel door.

Leonard felt himself come truly awake, then, and shake off the last tendrils of his dream. His knees ached, he discovered. How long had he been kneeling on the floor, his bed sheet lying in a crumpled heap beside him?

He did not know.

Leonard stayed in his crouch, racked with cold, as if a ghost had passed through him. It felt like forever until his stuttered breathing found a proper rhythm, and his muscles relaxed. 

A tiny shadow fluttered against the outline of a curtain. Leonard looked up, watching it dance along an invisible path across the window until it disappeared. A moth, he named it. They were attracted to the warmth of the light fixture which hung outside. He didn't know what spurred him to finally move, but he did and went to the window in silence to draw back the edge of the curtain.

Something white, without form, stood across the street from his room, brighter than the lamplight and the moon combined. He could not tell if it had eyes but was convinced it watched him nonetheless.

Leonard released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding and let the curtain fall into place. Nearly a minute passed before he could raise his hand again. It shook slightly as he pulled back the curtain a second time.

Nothing there. The sidewalk was empty, barring an overturned trash bin and a few drifting leaves.

He pulled on clothes and crawled back into bed, burrowing under a scratchy blanket. For an hour he stared at various objects on the nightstand—keys, wallet, alarm—not certain if he wanted to sleep or stay awake. Eventually his body decided for him, and he fell into a dreamless repose.

* * *

  
Decker used to tell himself he hunted because he had to, but in truth he has always known he liked it. Enjoyed it, even.

The thing about hunting was that the prey often times didn't know they were being hunted. The deer went about foraging; the ducks preened their feathers while floating in the pond; the humans left their houses to go for a walk when they thought the weather was fine.

All Matt had to do was kept track of his quarry until the right moment came to strike. Hunting was simple and held very few surprises.

That was why he preferred to hunt the smarter game—the monsters. Because they were monsters, they knew they would always be hunted, that when they left disaster and tragedy in their wake someone would want them dead. So they hid in plain sight, behind innocent masks and insipid words, and made you think they were like all the others.

And sometimes, he thought, they hid so well they even fooled themselves.

He hunted one of those monsters tonight. It wasn't quite the one he wanted, the one he _needed_ to kill to avenge his brother's death, but it was a kindred. When he had spotted it drifting down the street, he had recognized what was behind the pretty face, alive in the angular eyes. 

The longer he followed her, the quicker she walked, moving in and out of shadows like it was her otherworld. When she suddenly dove into a side alley, Decker went after her, gun drawn and ready.

She got him from behind.

The blow made his vision white-out, but as he fell he twisted, brought the gun up and fired. The bullet passed through empty air. He hit the ground, stunned.

A knee landed in his solar plexus, pressed down until he struggled to keep air in his lungs. The gun wasn't in his hand anymore. It was in hers, and the end of the barrel was cold against his temple. 

"Hello, fucker," the she-monster said to him. "I think you picked the wrong girl."

Matt laughed. "I know what you are," he sang back at her. Her long ponytail, a river of black, had fallen over her shoulder. She was pretty, so pretty, and very, very ugly inside. "I know what you are," he said again, his laughter dying to calmer tones.

She took the gun off his temple and asked too softly, "What am I?"

He told her because she was one of those who had hidden too well and it was important she knew why she had to die. "You are a thief of souls."

Her sharp intake of breath was her admission of guilt. Matt went for her throat with the knife he kept tucked inside the cuff of his shirt sleeve. She jerked back in time that the cut was too shallow to do the proper amount of damage. Her quick retaliation was a sign of training, he noted, as she aimed his gun at his head and fired twice in rapid succession.

Matt's reflexes saved him. The first bullet carved through the side of his ball cap, and the second bullet ricocheted off the pavement. He brought his elbow down on her arm and knocked the firearm sideways. She gave no cry of pain when the blade of his knife buried itself between her ribs. He pulled the knife out to make a second strike.

A floodlight came on at the front of the alleyway. Shadows fled, hers along with his. Matt had a split second to make a decision before people followed the light; he looked into her dark eyes, and did. "Thief of souls," he whispered, letting her go. She crumpled onto her side, the hand she pressed to her wound slick and red. Already the blood was evaporating off her fingers.

This one knew his true face now, as he knew hers. Matt hurried deeper into the alley, his cap pulled low over his face. They would meet again.

* * *

  
Leonard opened his eyes to the muted sound of traffic and sunlight. At first he didn't remember being fully clothed when he went to bed, but the memory of fear came back to him. Why he had been afraid proved more elusive. Had it been the nightmare he must have had, or the thing he had tricked himself into seeing at the window?

Well, it didn't matter now.

The bedside clock said it was already well past ten and edging toward eleven. He got up, discarded what he had slept in and showered. At odd moments, as he shaved and dressed, Leonard found himself opening and closing his right hand, agitated by a sensation that something should have been in it. The feeling finally faded once he left his motel room.

There were two things he needed right away: food and time to think. Both he sought a few blocks away at a greasy spoon diner which claimed to have the best ribeye sandwich in the state. Today Leonard was determined to indulge himself, so he ordered that ribeye sandwich with a large side of fries. 

He discovered that eleven thirty wasn't too early for lunch at all in Riverside; in a span of fifteen minutes, the diner went from three customers to a near overflow. Perhaps it was because of all the people blocking the door, milling around, and chatting loudly from all directions that Leonard didn't see the danger coming until it was upon him. Or perhaps he had just been too invested in his ribeye sandwich and fries because it was the first non-liquid meal he had had in two days.

That, too, in the end did not matter.

"Are you hiding, or here for the pie?"

There was nowhere to run in a elbow-room-only diner. Leonard sank low into his seat and enacted the strategy of avoiding eye contact. Unfortunately his lack of acknowledgement didn't deter the new arrival from sliding into the diner booth across from him. 

Leonard muttered "Fuck" under his breath and shot the man his sourest look. "Are you following me?" he demanded.

Christopher Pike, county sheriff and current pain in Leonard's ass, matched the sour look with a thin-lipped smile. 

Leonard tried to catch the waitress's eye to ask for the bill. No point in hanging around to talk when he had nothing nice to say. His mother had taught him that one thing, at least, before she passed away.

"If you leave now," Pike said, matter-of-fact, "you'll find a very nosy federal investigator just around the corner." 

Leonard dropped his fork. It felt into the pool of ketchup next to his fries. "What?"

Pike made no effort to hide his amusement. "You're lucky I intervened. Your agent likes the cobb salad here. I assume you didn't know that, because otherwise you would be incredibly stupid to be sitting in the same establishment he prefers to frequent for lunch."

 _Holy shit_. Leonard shoved down panic and reached for the jacket he'd tossed down on the seat.

Pike held up his hand, stalling Leonard's haphazard escape with "Don't worry. He's not coming in."

"How do you know that?" Leonard snapped, too on-edge to play at politeness.

"How do you think? I made certain he saw me in the parking lot. It seems," the sheriff went on to say, "the two of you like your cat-and-mouse games. You're his mouse, and he's mine—in a manner of speaking."

Leonard reluctantly leaned back in his seat, trying to decide if he should believe Pike or not. "We're not allies," he said. "Why would you help me?"

"I told you, Leonard, we can be of help to each other."

"I didn't agree to anything," he reminded the man. Leonard picked up a handful of forgotten fries and went back to eating. He'd stay, for now.

"I know," Pike said. He glanced around the diner, all-at-once seeming suspiciously relaxed, his tone of voice too casual. "To be honest," he told McCoy, "since I gathered some idea of who you're looking for, I have been very tempted to get rid of you."

The food in Leonard's mouth might as well have been ash. With difficulty he managed to swallow it. "Yeah?" he said, hoping he sounded casual too. "So what's stopping you?"

A corner of Pike's mouth quirked. "I'm not sure. Maybe because you haven't done anything yet to give me reason to."

Christopher Pike didn't seem like the type of man who waited for a criminal to commit a crime. Leonard pushed his plate aside and laced his fingers around his mug of coffee, pretending to be unaffected by the inherent threat. Belatedly, as he watched the amusement in the other man's eyes deepen, he recalled that Pike could probably see through pretense the way a predator could smell fear. It wasn't a pleasant comparison.

"I might be grateful for you saving my ass just now," Leonard said slowly, "but if this is a prelude to you stalking me or some such shit until you get an answer, you're wasting my time and yours. I'll make up my mind when I make up my mind, sir, and not a second sooner."

"Fine."

Leonard had been prepared to continue arguing, so the dismissal of the subject surprised him. "That was too easy," he accused.

"Wasn't it?" replied his lunch companion. A family passing by the booth caught Pike's eye, and he raised a hand in greeting. Their small girl-child waved her lollipop at him and squealed, "Hiya, Mr. Sheriff! Hiya!" Pike's eyes crinkled at the corners. The girl turned her attention to Leonard and stayed fixated on him for some time, even as her mother strapped her into a booster seat.

Leonard felt every inch the stranger in this atmosphere. "I didn't think you lived here," he said to shift the attention away from him.

"Riverside isn't the county seat," agreed Pike, "but I spent a majority of my childhood here. Also, I have to give speeches occasionally. People can't help but recognize me. Goes along with the job."

"Wonderful," muttered Leonard, his discomfort turning into paranoia with each second that passed. The little girl had discarded her lollipop for a cup of orange juice, and she still watched him as she drank it.

"Tell me what you know about Winona," Leonard was asked abruptly.

He took a moment to consider if he really wanted to do that.

Pike waited until a waitress, who stopped by the table to refill Leonard's coffee and inform the sheriff that his order was almost ready, had moved out of hearing range to add, "Tell me, or don't. Either way, when I leave here I will know what you know."

"I see you're still a bastard," Leonard remarked, then sighed through his nose. "I know she's dead. The information wasn't easy to find until I wasn't looking for it." 

That's partly why he was here, burning up an hour or two over a meal he couldn't really afford. It had felt like a punch to the gut to find out the woman was six feet under. He had no doubt it was true; local gossip was often more factual than what was written in the newspaper. Now, though, Leonard was almost afraid to go looking for the son, so terribly afraid of meeting that final dead-end to his search for answers.

"What else?"

"I don't know. A kid. She had a sick kid, and she was buried as a Kirk."

Chris nodded, no longer amused. "She was a Davis first."

Leonard closed his eyes, what he didn't put together before hitting him like ton of bricks. "Then you know, don't you? About why I came here?"

"Like you said," the sheriff said softly, "information is easy to find once you aren't looking for it. Your daughter is dying, and you believe magic is killing her."

Leonard opened his eyes to glare at Pike, angry for no explainable reason.

Pike met the glare evenly. "What I don't understand, Mr. McCoy, is why you think a water demon is the cause of her suffering."

He started to say _That's none of your business_ but held back. "It's complicated."

"It has to be," the man agreed and in the next instant turned to smile at the approaching waitress. He laid a hand on the plastic bag she placed on the table. "Thank you, Margaret Lynn. Give my compliments to the chef."

The waitress teased, "You haven't even tried it yet. How do you know it's good?"

"It always is." 

She laughed and left after slipping Leonard's bill under the cream dispenser for his coffee.

Leonard rubbed a hand over his face, weary all of a sudden. "Listen," he said, "I know this isn't the last time you'll tail me somewhere. Just... give me a couple of days to come up with my next move." He reached for the clip of cash in his back pocket. "And thanks for Spock."

Pike leaned forward on his elbows, adamant as he insisted, "Leonard, neither of us have a couple of days to waste. Once the agent finds you, you're done. You'll be useless to me. So get off your ass and go find Kirk. I'll make it easy for you." And with that, the man slid a piece of paper across the table. An address was written on it.

Leonard stared at it; he stared at the paper until a tiny spark inside him burst into a flame, and then a fire. 

"Useless... to you? _To you?_ " Leonard's hands clenched into fists. "You think I give two fucks about you? I'm here for a little girl who was told she might as well start praying to God to go to heaven because her chances of survival are slim-to-none! Anything I do, or don't do, will be for _her_." After he had hissed that last part, he stood up and seriously contemplated if throwing the rest of his coffee in Pike's face was worth the arrest that would surely follow.

Pike grabbed Leonard's wrist and jerked him back into the booth without an apology. "I don't doubt your motives or purpose, but things aren't always so black-and-white. Winona Davis was trying to save her child too, and now she's dead."

"What?"

The sheriff added nothing else but stared hard at Leonard.

Leonard sucked in air and forced himself to calm down, to consider what Pike was trying to tell him without saying it outright. He didn't want to care, but... He recalled something he had read. "You mean her death wasn't..."

"Suicide?" Pike finished grimly. "No."

Leonard crossed his arms, thinking about that small insight. Shit if this, his life, wasn't turning into one giant murder mystery! "Natural causes?"

"No."

Leonard pursed his mouth, not liking the options left. He concluded, "I still have to talk to the kid."

Pike picked up the plastic bag and stood. "I want you to talk to him. We wouldn't be having this conversation otherwise." Then the man paused, gaze considering. "I suppose I should give you fair warning about the boy so you don't go in blind." 

Leonard snorted. "Really, you mean there was a chance he could have been normal despite the fact he survived a ritualistic drowning and somebody murdering his mother?"

Pike stared at Leonard until Leonard swallowed the rest of his sarcasm and muttered an apology. Then the sheriff transferred his bag to his right hand and tucked the left into his jacket pocket. He turned away from the table.

Confused, Leonard said, "Wait, what's the warning?"

Pike walked away.

When the man reached the exit to the diner, a chill crept down Leonard's spine. On the heels of it came a flash of an image, like a photograph overlaying what was in front of him—something he could see, except was not seeing in the truest sense of the word. There was a woman slumped forward, not in the booth but somewhere else, inside the interior of a car. Her forehead, Leonard realized, was resting against a steering wheel. Long, loose blonde hair hid her face but the bloody strands were telling. Upon Leonard's next inhale, his brain told him he smelled rotting flesh.

The vision vanished, leaving him queasy.

Pike's hand rested gently against the diner door. He himself stood woodenly, silent. 

"What's the warning?" Leonard whispered. He knew it wouldn't matter if Pike could hear the words over the noisy lunch crowd.

The answer, when it came, was barely obtrusive for all that it was another man's thought in Leonard's head. The thought read: _The son may be the mother's killer._

Pike walked out of the diner, then, leaving Leonard frozen in his seat long after the man's departure.

* * *

  
Sixteen years ago, Jim's entire life changed during the month of September. He didn't know if it was due to his PTSD that he came to loathe the very word of this particular month. Sometimes he thought the feeling had nothing to do with him at all, that it was part of that which had been haunting him since he was eleven. The thing grew more... antsy in September, like an electric buzz constantly moving across his skin. Often, it drove him to do strange things.

Tonight he was painting whorls along the bottom of the wall outside the kitchen with a bottle of partially dried acrylic he'd found in a closet. His cat, Jinx, watched him from his perch on the back of a kitchen chair. Jim didn't doubt that Jinx knew his owner was crazy. They had lived together for a few years, after all.

He talked to the cat whenever he surfaced from his absorption with his artwork, figuring since Jinx didn't understand if he was speaking English or gibberish, his chatter didn't matter. Having a voice made him feel human.

"Mom would kill me if she was here to see this," he said, "but whatever. This is my house now. I can do what I want, can't I?" He pulled away blue-stained fingertips from the wall and wiped them idly on his pants, looking at one particularly crooked whorl. "What the fuck is that?"

Jinx shifted on the top bar of the chair, tail twitching.

Jim rubbed his knuckles against his cheekbone in thought. "Maybe it's a hex," he guessed. "Maybe I'm hexing my house." Then his eyes caught the edge of the whorl, and he knew it wasn't done. He leaned forward, dipping his fingers into the blue paint so he could finish it.

Time became meaningless for a while. At some point, Jinx might have twined around his back and tried to climb into his lap for petting, but Jim had no patience for interruptions—until, that is, the doorbell broke into his concentration and caused him to smear his latest chain of circles. 

" _Motherfucker_ ," he snarled, knowing instinctively he had ruined the whole thing, and launched himself off the floor to kill whoever had the audacity to be at his front door.

The interloper did not flinch when Jim—wild-eyed, teeth bared, and covered in blue paint nearly up to his elbows—threw open the door like he was ready to attack. "Jim," the man greeted. He walked right past Jim into the house.

"Shit," Jim muttered, his grip on the doorframe dropping away in resignation. He shut the door and turned around to watch his visitor pause by the wall which looked like a toddler had finger-painted all over it and peruse it before moving on. "Shit," he said again, then fell silent as he habitually did when among other people.

Seconds later, a call of "Food!" came from the kitchen, pitched as though Jim was expected to come running. It kind of pissed Jim off to realize he was already halfway across the living room like a salivating dog before his brain caught up with his body. Jinx appeared out of nowhere and dashed into the kitchen ahead of him. Jim purposefully slowed his pace so it might seem like he was obeying the summons only because he had nothing else to do.

As Jim entered the kitchen, the houseguest took in Jim's wary expression but only remarked, "You need to wash your hands."

This guy was more insane than he was, Jim had decided long ago. Since Winona's passing, Christopher Pike made a point of stopping by the house every couple of weeks. Jim had tried ignoring him, locking him out, had even punched him once. Afterwards, the fool had rubbed at the bruise blossoming on his jaw and inquired if Jim felt better. In those few words, he had somehow managed to make Jim feel regret for the violent outburst—and to this day Jim still did not appreciate that.

He wasn't stupid. He knew Pike had had a thing for his mom. He just didn't get why the guy continued to make a nuisance of himself now that she was dead. He didn't need a caretaker. He was an adult who went to work, paid bills and—

"So, want to tell me why you're ruining perfectly good wallpaper?"

Jim glared. Pike said shit like that as if he believed Jim would give him an answer. The only difference was that Jim didn't think the guy said it out of spite the way other people usually did. Jim's thoughts flashed back to the memory of his public embarrassment, courtesy of his supervisor, and he felt the urge to hurt someone all over again.

Pike paused with his hand in the silverware drawer to give Jim a sharp, speculative look. "Anything going on I need to know about? People treating you decent at work?"

Jim backed up, unnerved for the umpteenth time since he had met Pike that the man could read him so well. He shrugged and turned away.

"Hands," Jim's self-appointed keeper reminded him.

 _Whatever_ , Jim thought, flippant, but he grudgingly sought out the bathroom. Nosy bastard or not, Pike had brought two plates of the weekend lunch special from Jim's favorite diner. There was no point in wasting good food just because the company sucked.

He heard the crazy guy in his kitchen laugh out loud. Jim shut the bathroom door firmly so he didn't have to listen it if it continued; he was convinced it was him Christopher Pike was laughing at. 

It took a good five minutes to scrub the acrylic off his arms, and after that Jim sat down on the edge of the tub and waited another five minutes just because he could. It shouldn't have surprised him when Pike rapped on the bathroom door with a warning. 

"Quit brooding, Kirk, or I'll feed your half to the cat."

Jim jerked open the bathroom door to stare the man down. _Why?_ he thought fiercely, hating that he could not make his demand aloud and be understood. _Why the hell do you keep coming back?_

Pike dropped a hand to his shoulder and squeezed it. "You can stop hating me anytime now. I know we're not friends, and I know we're not family, but that doesn't make us enemies."

Jim grunted and fixed his gaze on a spot upon the opposite wall, both mollified and displeased. At least Pike was straightforward with him most of the time. Jim guessed that had to count for something. 

The hand on Jim's shoulder tightened and propelled him down the hallway. 

"C'mon, time to eat. I have twenty minutes left to spare."

Jim let Pike march him back to the kitchen, all too aware of the other reason (although Pike's tenacity was a fairly chief one) that he had to endure these visits. Christopher Pike might not be family or friend but he was the law within the county lines. If Jim didn't pretend to be respectful of that, then he was screwed. From first glance at Chris, Jim had simply known it to be true.

But why, oh why, had the sheriff of all people decided to waste time on a mentally unhinged mute?

Jim came out of his thoughts in time to hear Pike say, "After you finish your plate, you can clean up that mess you made on the wall." Jim looked at the wall in question and, to his surprise, saw it the way Pike did, all mystery behind it gone. Somebody _had_ made a mess, a scribble-scratch of looping circles and wavy edges. It was chaotic, pointless.

Why had he done that? Like so many times before, Jim honestly did not know. A tiny flare of panic came to life inside him. His palms started to sweat.

The hand on his shoulder slid up to the back of his neck. "It's okay, son," Pike said, his voice a calm counterpoint to the state of Jim's mind. "It's nothing. Clean it up, then forget about it."

Jim nodded. Clean it up, and forget. Yes, he would do exactly that. He put his back to the ugly marks on the wall, determined not to give it any more of his attention.

"Now eat," Pike commanded.

Jim obediently went to the kitchen table and sat down. He lifted a spoon. After sitting down across from him, Pike gave Jim an encouraging smile. They ate their lunch in silence. Jinx staked out the leftovers on the table until Pike forced the cat into retreat. Jim surreptitiously dropped some of his ham under the table because he knew Jinx would find it later. 

By the time Pike left the house, Jim was surprised, like always, to find he felt immeasurably steadier. He spent the remainder of his afternoon scrubbing at the blue wall stains. Eventually, inevitably, they disappeared and Jim was free of them.

The next day he woke up out of a nightmare. By mid-morning he was drawing again, this time with a marker set, the first thing that had come to hand. He left the walls alone because the walls no longer held power (it had been stripped out of them); instead he traced and re-traced the same bizarre patterns across the wood flooring, half-mad and vaguely, just vaguely desperate to stop.


	10. Part Nine

Leonard had turned the slip of paper over enough times in his hand that it began to curl at the edges and the ink smeared. He thought about what he really wanted and if helping Pike was his best option. In the end it proved to be the only option he had.

~~~

The house had seen better days. One of its shutters hung crookedly; another was missing. The once-baby-blue paint was grey with dirt; in some places, it had been peeled away in long strips like giant claw marks. The front yard, which Leonard pretended to have no interest in as he walked by, was a garden of dandelions, chickweeds, and twisted scraps of metal which might have once been lawn decorations.

Leonard tugged the hood of his jacket farther down towards his nose, wondering if the owner was a shut-in or simply a lazy son-of-a-bitch. People who were fortunate enough to own their houses tended to take care of them, rather than let them rot.

He took in the rest of the property as he circled the street corner and paused near a wooden mailbox to light a cigarette. The home was modeled after a farmhouse (if on the small side) which made it seem out of place in a suburban neighborhood. With the way it was going to shit, it could easily be the creepiest residence on the block. All it lacked was a border of tall, unruly hedges and a Keep Out sign.

Some people, Leonard acknowledged, did ruin their property on purpose. An old derelict farm in Iowa? In a heartbeat, it could be flipped from worthless to prime supernatural realty. Hauntings were money-makers these days. Leonard had earned his share from that in the past, before the feds had cracked down on the scammers, helping clueless homeowners turn ugly three-bedroom houses into ugly three-bedroom houses with ghosts. It was all an illusion of course, built on lies and tricks, but if the illusion held up to the entertainment industry's standards, it became a profitable business for everyone involved. 

He finished his cigarette and crushed it beneath his shoe, then picked up what was left of the butt and pocketed it. As his fingers absently skimmed over the cell phone inside his pocket, he came very close to pulling it out to snap a photo of the house to send to Scotty. 

_Look what I have to deal with,_ he imagined typing below the picture.

Scotty would probably text back, _Definitely a hoarder. Or a serial killer. Either way my condolences, lad._ The guy thought that kind of shit was funny.

On the second story, a gauze-thin curtain moved behind the shutter-less window. Leonard's humor dissipated and was replaced with the cold certainty he was being watched. He put his back to the house and resumed walking. Ten steps along the cracked sidewalk, a fat raindrop hit his shoulder. Seconds later, the sky opened up. Leonard huddled into his jacket and kept his pace steady, figuring he already looked suspicious and, rain or not, running was bound to draw yet more attention to himself. He plodded through the rain for the next three blocks until he came to a lone bench marking a bus stop. He sat down, hoping no one nearby had called the cops based on the assumption he was casing the neighborhood.

Although... breaking into the Kirk house had its appeal. From what he had learned, James Kirk (Crazy Kirk, that's what a convenience store attendant had called Winona's son) wasn't likely to offer up any personal information to strangers. 

"Fella don't talk anyway," the attendant had said. "Ask him a question 'n he'll probably punch you in the face a'fore you can 'pologize for asking."

Leonard still didn't know what that quite meant, because who would apologize for asking a question unless it was an unforgivably rude one?

He blew out a breath in exasperation and tried to think of other things besides the rain soaking his back. 

Okay, if breaking in was the plan, he needed a crowbar and a guarantee Kirk or anyone else wasn't going to be home. Probably Pike could help with the latter given Leonard didn't fuck things up by giving away that he was going to commit a crime. Once he was inside, he ruminated, he had to find something helpful, if not about Kirk's past then about Kirk himself. Leonard could con him into a friendly conversation about, say, a shared hobby; then he would have a better chance of getting around whatever defense mechanism it was the kid used to protect his secrets. 

Especially if that mechanism was a fist, Leonard thought a touch sourly. He had had his fill of violence as of late.

He heard the bus coming before he saw it and rose from the bench with impatience, stomping his feet to wake them up. When he blew out a breath, to his surprise it came out cloudy and white. The temperature had dropped incredibly fast for a little bit of rain. Leonard shivered. 

Across the intersection, a car rolled to a stop and sat there, idling. When the bus finally pulled up, Leonard had to drag his attention away from trying to separate the hazy outline of the driver from the opaqueness of the windshield. He didn't know why but he had the feeling he'd seen that car before. Where, though, didn't come to him no matter how hard he thought about it. Once Leonard had checked to make certain it wasn't following the bus, he slumped comfortably in his seat and breathed in the sticky, saturated air around him. It was easy enough to let the mystery go.

* * *

  
Nothing was on the radio: no news, no ambulance calls, no police chatter. A world plunged into darkness stayed silent out of fear. He circled the street once, twice, looking for what was relevant to McCoy. He didn't see it—or it didn't see him. 

A fog had settled over the street which didn't seem natural. He put his hand out the window to see if it felt as icy and unfriendly as it looked.

It was warm.

He drew his hand back in and wiped the palm on his pants. 

After circling the street a third time, he had to reluctantly give up as an elderly woman had opened her front door to peer long and hard at him. Welcome overstayed, he thought, dismayed and kept on driving until he caught up to his quarry.

* * *

  
The day had lifted to its zenith and nearly folded away. At the west end, the sky was a lazy paintwork of amber and golden sienna. Darkness began to stir in the east. Leonard felt tired without knowing why, then felt hungry when he recalled he hadn't eaten. An hour on the bus had done very little except to agitate both the tiredness and the hunger. 

He trudged down a sidewalk which had become very familiar to him by now, perhaps so familiar on principle he knew he ought to move on. Falling into routine was dangerous on the best of days.

Leonard contemplated this thought as he stepped onto the grounds of the motel. When he passed by the office, the white, uneven blinds covering the length of the door moved with much the same surreptitiousness as the curtain at Kirk's house had. A finger of cold traced the length of Leonard's spine and lingered like a warning. He purposefully paused in his trek in order to dismiss the feeling and to debate if he should go into the office to discover if the clerk had simply been dusting the blinds, not spying. 

Every floodlight attached to the building flickered and dimmed.

Leonard blinked, stepping backwards on instinct—and straight into a puddle hiding a deep pothole, which nearly turned his ankle. He caught himself in mid-lurch before he could fall down and dragged his foot out of the water with a heartfelt _goddamn_. The afternoon rain had stopped some time during the bus ride across town, but it had left behind plenty of misery. He had already been splashed with the rain-soaked filth from the street by a speeding motorist. Now, as he eyed his muddy shoe, he wondered if the world simply had it out for him.

Pissed, Leonard jerked a key out of his pocket and went on to his room. He wanted nothing more than to be out of these damp clothes, to warm his bones before he set about finding a solid meal. But as he stepped inside, the uneasiness which had been stalking him all day returned and scattered his plans. The walls were strung with an abundance of shadows, some of them writhing, others quiescent, and others still curling like slow flame. Leonard laid down his wallet on the nightstand with care, examining all that he saw but found nothing amiss.

What was it about today that had him so paranoid? he wondered. It was hard to know.

Sighing, he sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged off his wet sneaker, followed it up with his wet sock and tossed both aside. He bent down to deal with the other foot and, in doing so, caught the noiseless glide of an opening door out of the corner of his eye.

Times like this, self-preservation made it less important to think. Leonard didn't bother to give sound to his alarm; he simply dropped to the floor and reached up to the underside of the box springs to find the small firearm he had stowed there. 

The spot where it should have been was empty.

"Shit!" he cursed, then froze as a pair of polished black shoes rounded the corner of the bed. Leonard's heart thumped hard in his chest.

Flee or fight?

"Mr. McCoy," came the voice Leonard had been dreading to hear, "you are under arrest."

 _Flee_ , Leonard decided on in that instant, and kicked Spock in the shin before crawling the rest of the way under the bed. He wasn't a small man by any means. It was a tight squeeze.

No point in going out the other side, he thought, not when the fed would be on him in a second.

The polished shoes backed up several steps. Then their owner squatted down, long coat pooling around him. Leonard could barely see the tip of Spock's chin, but he could hear him well enough.

"Is that wise?" Spock asked.

Leonard tucked his hands in close to his body. "Fuck you. 'S the best option I got."

He heard a soft exhale and the warning beneath. "Mr. McCoy..."

"What're you gonna do, Agent? Shoot me while I'm under here? I think that'd be messier than you're interested in." Leonard swallowed, glad Spock couldn't see the stark fear on his face and prayed the bluff was on the mark.

"Do not be childish."

"Well, considering I don't wanna be _dead_... Tell you what, you go back in the bathroom 'n _then_ I'll come out."

Spock stood up, which Leonard half-expected, but the man did not move otherwise. Nor did he speak. Leonard stared intently at Spock's shoes, wondering what the hell the guy was up to by doing nothing.

Then he felt it: the thrum of power, a skittering of energy along the surface of the threadbare carpet, which manifested and made the bed above him suddenly jolt on its feet. The whole ensemble—mattress, box springs, and frame—shot up then sideways as if it had been thrown. It crash-landed into the dresser against the opposite wall, knocking a lamp and other oddments to the floor.

Leonard turned his head to look at the mess then looked back at Spock, who was in the process of lowering his arms. "That..." Leonard said, after a moment of silence, "...was weird. And kinda impressive."

"The noise will have attracted attention. I suggest you get up." 

Already Spock was next to Leonard, bending down to take a hold of his forearm. Leonard remembered at the last second he wasn't supposed to let the agent have it and scrambled away to put distance between them. 

True to form, Leonard's luck was really the worst. Spock effectively blocked the only exit, and his stance said he was prepared to keep Leonard from it. Leonard cast about hastily for a weapon, contemplated going for the broken lamp but didn't for a second dare take his eyes off Spock. A mix of light and shadow played across the man's skin, painting an illusion of amusement on an otherwise expressionless face. 

"I have followed you one thousand, two hundred and fifty-eight miles," Spock said, matter-of-fact. "Whatever you attempt to do next will be irrelevant to this outcome, Mr. McCoy."

"Is that right?" retorted Leonard, backing up until his legs met with crumpled frame of the bed. "You think just because you can toss furniture around like a poltergeist that your magic's more powerful than mine?" He lifted his hands slightly, as if he was about to start an incantation, in warning. "Let's find out!"

Spock only stared at him.

Leonard's shirt clung to his lower back from rain and sweat. He felt it drag against his skin as he raised his hands higher, turning the palms outward. He growled, "I'm not bluffing!"

Spock shifted, then, and clasped his empty hands behind his back. "On the contrary, I believe you are. But if you wish to prove me wrong, by all means, recite a spell."

Leonard didn't know any spells which weren't part of a con. His kind of magic required no spell work. And, fuck, it seemed like Spock _knew_ that.

One of the man's eyebrows twitched briefly, as if it had to abort a natural inclination to react to Leonard's guilty silence. There was something smug about the polite way Spock asked, "Shall I recite one for you?"

"Damn you," he said and dropped his arms to his sides. He was such a goddamn idiot anyway for coming in here when he had seen the signs of trouble. Such an idiot. Spock might as well— 

"—shoot me," the words burst out of Leonard.

This time Spock's eyebrows flew up to his hairline. "Excuse me?"

Leonard looked pointedly at the gun holster not completely hidden by the coat. "Just shoot me, and let's get this over with. I really don't have all day."

"The feeling is mutual. It seems most unfortunate that I spent a majority of my time on a stakeout here, although the effort has clearly born fruit," Spock replied, like that made perfect sense in light of Leonard's belligerence. The agent unclasped his hands and reached for his holster. "The owner had no qualms about identifying you. You did not pay him enough for his silence."

"Secrecy is expensive these days."

There was the barest of lifts to Spock's mouth, there and gone. "Indeed." Removing his gun, Spock made a show of checking if the clip was full.

Leonard's eyes narrowed. Was this an act to stall for time? He looked past the man's shoulder to the parted curtains and the outline of the cars in the parking lot beyond. Nothing unusual, nothing—no, wait. _That_ one. Shit. Leonard muttered under his breath, "I'm definitely not going to like this..."

"Like what?" inquired Spock.

"Whatever your reason is for not killing me yet. You got a partner out there, Spock?"

Spock's eyebrows came down. "I believe you aware that I do not."

"Then who's the guy that just passed by here twice?" Another bluff, because if the car didn't belong to a fed on surveillance... 

Leonard sucked in a sharp breath as a quick blur _did_ skim past the window like it had been conjured by a mere mentioning. There was something familiar about the outline through the curtains, something Leonard could almost put his finger on. It made the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach intensify. He pointed, saying, "There, just there I saw—"

Spock stiffened. "If this is an attempt to make me turn around, it will not work."

The outline of the man came back by, this time quickly enough to be alarming. In the instant he passed between the part in the curtains, Leonard caught sight of the rim of a cap tilted low over the eyes and a dark swarthy mass that had to be a beard.

The connection was instantaneous and horrifying. Leonard had a half-second to think _for fuck's sake_ before he cried, "Down!" and dropped to the floor for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. As if that had been the cue, the flimsy motel door splintered under buckshot.

Spock twisted at the waist and fired his gun as the door caved in. The shot hit the doorframe, blowing off a chunk of wood. Somebody leaned around the door and took his turn at discharging his weapon. The shot should have had a blind trajectory but it didn't. Leonard saw the force from the bullet drive Spock into a backward stumble; he saw a spray of blood hit the back wall. But being shot didn't deter Spock. He fired again, this time as the double barrel of a shotgun came back around the corner of the doorframe for a second round and the shot was deadly accurate: it hit close enough to the trigger finger that the intruder dropped his weapon with a yelp.

Leonard watched it fall just inside the doorway as its owner, the shadow man, fled. Leonard crawled toward the abandoned shotgun. He had almost reached it when he heard a ragged gasp and " _Don't_."

The simple contraction didn't sound right coming from Spock. Leonard turned around.

Spock was still on his feet, one hand clamped against the flesh of his shoulder. The other hand still held his gun, aimed directly at Leonard's head, and the agent's grip was eerily steady, despite the tight paleness of his face which implied he felt great pain.

"Now you're gonna shoot me?" Leonard questioned gently.

"I am considering it," Spock said, voice cold. "You know who that was." It wasn't a question.

Leonard sat back on his heels and lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I do, and believe me it wasn't a friend of mine." He eyed the blood dripping from between Spock's fingers. "Okay. How about we make a deal? You know what I can do."

"Negative. I will be at greater disadvantage if I allow it. You will no doubt require that I relinquish my gun. Once I am weakened and disoriented by the healing, you will then likely strip me of all weapons, identification—" Spock eyed Leonard's one bare foot, "—and possibly my shoes, and leave me here or take me hostage in my own vehicle for future leverage."

Leonard felt grim amusement. "You know, that last option didn't cross my mind. It's a good idea, though. Thanks."

Spock's mouth pressed into a thin line, and he came very close, in Leonard's opinion, to swaying on his feet. 

Leonard took pity on him. "It seems like you've been trained very well to assess a situation, Mr. Spock, but let me point out a few extra things. First, I don't think you _are_ going to shoot me—though damned if I know why—and that either means you make the conscious choice now to let me help you or you pass out from blood loss and then I just do what I'm going to do anyway. Second, I wouldn't put it past Psycho to come back and try shooting us up again—"

"He only aimed for me," Spock pointed out.

"—which," Leonard finished slowly, "regardless of who he was trying to kill is a scenario neither of us wants."

"I..." Spock began, and this time the man did sway noticeably on his feet. 

Leonard stood up and held out his hand. "Enough."

The gun in Spock's hand lowered one inch. Leonard took a step forward. The gun drooped another inch, and a tremor ran up Spock's arm. Leonard moved forward again.

"I cannot," Spock said haltingly, "in good conscience... hand you my weapon. You are... a criminal."

"It's okay," Leonard agreed and took that last step to close the distance between them. "I'm taking it from you," he said, and did.

Apparently it wasn't a moment too soon. Spock's eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled at Leonard's feet.

* * *

  
He was afraid to look down. So afraid.

Fucking Fed pigs and their fucking guns.

His finger. He clutched at it and, distracted, ran full tilt into the side of his car. The blood on his hands made it hard to keep a grip on the door handle but he managed eventually and ripped open the door.

It was better inside. He had another gun, smaller caliber, stashed in the glove box.

His finger. 

He hunched against the steering wheel and took a chance.

Despite the pain, it was still there.

He flushed with relief and then anger. That son of a fucking bitch had nearly shot his finger off! He reached for the glove box but saw, just glancing about, the door to the motel office edging open.

Damn it, witnesses. It was time to go, although he hadn't done what he was supposed to. Shit shit shit.

The boss wasn't going to be happy.

* * *

  
"Fucking _heavy_ ," snarled Leonard as he unceremoniously shoved the dead weight of his burden into the passenger seat of a scrupulously clean car. He had some concern the wound was going to pop open again because even though the bullet had only carved through the flesh of Spock's arm, Leonard had done a quick patch job on it. He had coaxed the blood vessels to seal up in order to stop the bleeding but there had been no time make the muscle and flesh knit itself back together. This minor healing was akin to duct tape bandaging a leaky faucet. 

He grabbed the leg still dangling out of the vehicle and tucked it inside, then slammed the car door shut. As Leonard came around the front of Spock's dark sedan, he saw the motel clerk peeking through the half-open office door, a phone cradled to his ear. The young man had watched Leonard drag an unconscious United States federal agent across the parking lot like a sack of potatoes but had given no inclination he had the courage to interrupt an in-progress kidnapping—beyond, of course, calling the police. Leonard couldn't blame him. If the state of the motel room, with its upended bed, various bullet holes and decimated door was any indication, some serious shit was going down. Only a fool ran headlong into that.

He jerked open the driver-side door and slid in behind the wheel. The car cranked without a problem (not surprising since it had to be the latest make and model of the brand favored by the government). Leonard peeled the duffel bag he had haphazardly packed off his shoulder and dropped into the backseat as he put the car into drive. In minutes, they were away from the downtown area and heading south on a busy highway to who-knows-where. Leonard checked to make certain he hadn't been tagged by any of Pike's people (shit, what had Pike's brain-addled pet been thinking anyway?) and fifteen miles out pulled around to the back of a gas station. He covered up Spock's front with his jacket to hide the bloodstains from plain sight and went inside to fetch a cheap first aid kit, ibuprofen, and some bottles of water. Spock, it seemed, had been paying cash on his cross-country excursion because his wallet held a hell of a lot of it. A silver lining to every cloud, Leonard thought wryly, and helped himself to the money. 

When he got back to the car, Spock's eyes were open, his gaze lucid. He accused Leonard, "You handcuffed me."

"Yup," Leonard agreed. He pulled out of the gas station parking lot after studying the built-in GPS map on the dashboard and turned off onto a less-traveled, better-paved highway. He didn't stop checking the kind of traffic behind him, though, in the rearview mirror.

Spock twitched in such a way that Leonard's jacket slid off his shoulders. The agent stared down at his exposed, handcuffed wrists like they were at fault for his predicament. After a while he said in the same accusatory tone, "You did not heal my shoulder."

"I sorta fixed it." Leonard glanced at his passenger. "It's not bleeding again, is it?"

"I cannot tell, as I cannot see it or feel the inflicted area."

"So it's numb. That's good. Otherwise you'd crying right now, I imagine."

Spock turned to look at him, the non-expression on his face bordering insulted. 

Leonard ignored the silent disdain. "Let me know if you need to throw up." He tapped a finger on the steering wheel and read off a road sign in passing, "Twelve more miles 'til Iowa City."

Spock swung his head around to look out the side window. "We have left Riverside?"

"Had to," Leonard explained. "The local authorities have us on the radar." _In more ways than you know,_ he didn't add, thinking of Decker. What the hell had the bastard been thinking to start a gunfight in populated area? When Spock stayed silent, Leonard reached around to his back pocket and drew something out. "Also, you're going to tell me about this." He held up the McCoy family journal he had discovered inside a pocket of Spock's trench coat.

"I believe that is my question."

Leonard jerked the car off to the shoulder of the highway and the fed gave his fiercest glare. "Where the _fuck_ did you get it?"

Something hardened in Spock's eyes. "Where you left it, Mr. McCoy—in my father's private study."

Leonard's fingers clenched around the journal; its old leather binding bent pliantly under the force. He didn't say anything, but he knew he didn't need to. He had taken Spock's measure, and this guy wasn't the type to beat around the bush about the cold, hard facts.

Spock did not disappoint him. "I buried my remaining parent over forty-one days and nine hours ago. I know you did not kill him, but you brought death into his house and for that, I do not intend to forgive you."

Leonard took the deep cut of the words in stride. "So why come after me, if you think I'm not the guy who did it?"

"Because you will lead me to the one responsible."

Leonard sat back in his seat. That made too much sense. Of course, it did. Spock probably thought it was his purpose in life to make sense. Leonard looked down at the journal in his hand. "I gotta tell you, this is still a crap way to spend your bereavement leave."

Spock fixed his gaze straight ahead and said nothing. After the silence grew to be too much, Leonard pulled the car back onto the highway.

A mile along, Spock said abruptly, "My shoulder is no longer numb."

"Eleven miles," Leonard reminded him. "Then I'll fix it for good. I promise."

"I find no value in the promise of a felon."

"From where I'm sitting, I wouldn't believe a promise from you either. We aren't meant to because we're enemies."

"Then I do not understand," Spock murmured so softly that Leonard almost could not hear the words.

But he recognized the confusion and thus asked, "Understand what?"

Spock fell silent again, which Leonard accepted as a hint to quit prying. He wasn't certain he wanted to know what Spock had meant anyway. 

The man surprised him for the umpteenth time that day. Spock released a small, nearly noiseless breath and said, "Sarek managed to leave behind a message in the moment before his death."

Leonard bit into his lip, wishing he could close his ears, thinking, _This is personal, Spock, too damn personal. Why would you tell me this?_ He was ashamed to realize he was also curious to hear the rest of the explanation.

Spock continued, "He had hidden it—just a singular thought buoyed by the power of dying man, in what was left of the roots of his favorite tree. I almost did not find it in my grief, and even then I nearly destroyed it, afraid that his last words would make the pain unbearable. In the end, I had to know."

Leonard felt a tension rising between them. "Did he say who—" He stopped himself from finishing that, a desperate question about the curse, because it was a selfish assumption. He swallowed with some difficulty and guessed instead, "It was a goodbye?"

"No," Spock responded flatly. "He said to help you."

Some things, Leonard learned in that moment, still had the power to shock him. He turned to look at Spock but anything he might have said dried up in his mouth at the cold hatred reflected back in Spock's dark eyes. Leonard returned to watching the road.

_He said to help you._

No "I love you" from a father to a son. No "I'm proud of you", "I believe in you", "It'll be okay" or any of the reassurances children want to hear from the people they love most when their fear ran deep.

_He said to help you._

The sun had disappeared completely by the time they reached Iowa City. Spock's profile looked no different in the lack of light. It was an unforgiving relief of angles and shadows. 

Better to have been in the presence of a cold-blooded killer, the realization came to Leonard. This man Leonard had taken, this Spock, son of Sarek who was bound to him through vengeance and a dead man's promise, would dog him until the very end; and even then Spock had no intentions of granting Leonard a merciful death. 

As with Pike, Leonard was left with little-to-no option. He had to wonder if, in truth, he had been set on this dangerous path to save his daughter at the cost of his own utter destruction. 

Oddly enough, he found he could not feel morose about it. Destruction was a step in the right direction, a key in his hand.

Sarek had sent his son to Leonard: a man who had the authority to go anywhere yet was set apart from all the rest; who was implacable, iron-strong and rarely bent to any form but his own; who was, for all that he seemed ordinary at first appearance, a mystery.

The palm of Leonard's hand itched fiercely. He scrubbed at the skin, laughing softly for no good reason. After everything, maybe he was losing his mind. That must be it. 

He snuck a glance at the thin-lipped passenger in the seat beside him. 

Truly, how was there anything about Spock which screamed blessing in disguise? Leonard would eat that ugly rain hat he'd spied earlier upon the backseat floorboard if it turned out to be true. And then, of course, he would have to have Scotty check him over to make certain he had not been possessed along the way.

"Thanks, I guess," Leonard murmured, in case the spirit of Spock's father was eavesdropping. "But just for the record, I knew you were a crazy old man."

A voice, very much alive, intruded into Leonard's wandering thoughts. "If you are done conversing with yourself, Mr. McCoy, I require the use of the nearest facilities."

Leonard pulled himself together and cut his eyes at Spock. "Is that so?"

Spock went on to elaborate, rather too calmly, "Also, I daresay I need not remind you to remove this impediment to my hands, otherwise you will be joining me in performing a very intimate bodily function."

An image was in Leonard's head before he could stop it. He vowed to bleach his brain by any means possible at the earliest opportunity. "Can't you hold it?"

Spock added, "Once I use the facilities, I wish to eat. I have no known food allergies; however I am strictly vegetarian. I also do not partake of gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, peanut, corn or eggs."

Leonard felt a pain start behind his left eye.

"In addition, there are certain basic standards to be met for our overnight arrangements. As I assume I am funding this venture, you will not choose an establishment with less than a four star rating. Please refer to the GPS recommendations—"

Leonard gritted his teeth. "Shut up, Spock."

"—not your cell phone. A bed-and-breakfast is preferable to a chain hotel. Optimally, for a proper night's rest, the sheet thread count should be—"

Leonard told the asshole to shut up three more times, each instance involving an increase in the spittle flying out of his mouth. Finally, when Leonard was on the verge of shoving his first-ever kidnapping victim out of a moving vehicle, Spock's list of ways to stay hygienic while traveling ended abruptly.

He turned to look at Leonard. "I will settle, of course, for just the removal of my handcuffs."

"You fuckin' bastard," Leonard said, "you sat quietly for twenty minutes to plan that entire monologue, didn't you?" He had already fished the key out of his pocket.

Spock reached over and plucked the key away, his movement mindful of his recent injury. "It was summarily planned and memorized in five. The additional fifteen minutes were needed to allow you to fall into an unsuspecting frame of mind."

"Just shut up," Leonard repeated, meaning it, as Spock unlocked the metal around his wrists.

"Certainly," replied the federal agent, pocketing the handcuffs and the key. "You realize, of course, without the handcuffs, we may officially be considered partners in crime."

Leonard scowled and turned into the parking lot of a Marriott. "Now I really wish you'd shot me."

That not-smile was back, just for the briefest of seconds. Leonard caught a glimpse of it in the reflective pane of the windshield.

Then Spock said, "Agreed, Mr. McCoy. I wish I had, too," and they were back to something much less strange.


	11. Part Ten

The thing about magic—all kinds of magic—was that part of the price to use it was always at the user's expense. Magic was energy with a will. The mage had to exert himself or herself to curve this will to a specific purpose. 

Some people believed that magic was an extension of the mage's personal energy; it wasn't so much a matter of one independent force trying to master another but the energy, being naturally wild, was very difficult to harness. Leonard thought that was a bunch of bullshit. Sure, when he was younger he had romanticized his ability, but ironically it was his ability that had convinced him of the true nature of magic. It existed alongside humans, a creature separate from whom they bartered for power. He had never felt magic as the same energy which ran the body, not even a kin to it. It was alien, it was unique, and it took rather than gave when it was being used. 

Sometimes the magic only wanted his energy, and so after a healing he was tired. Sometimes it took part of his will in the exchange—the kind of will he needed to survive in a world that hated him. Whatever the magic demanded was never so much that he didn't recover within a day or so, but that particular price had helped Leonard understand why some mages turned into blank-eyed husks of themselves after performing tremendous acts.

Simply put: magic could cripple you if it wanted to. So that was why it was always dangerous even at its most benign.

~~~

Leonard's responses were sluggish after he finished the healing of Spock's arm. His body wanted to sleep but his mind wouldn't let him, and with good reason: Spock, standing just beyond the bathroom door, was inspecting the small scar of pink skin on his arm in the mirror above the sink. He seemed fascinated by it—or was determining if it would impede his next move.

Definitely, Leonard thought, the Fed had to be up to no good.

"You've lost a lot of blood," he called. "The only reason you're still on your feet is because I gave you a little extra energy at the end there."

It wasn't a lie. He always made a gift of some of his energy at the end of a healing to help the body recalibrate itself. Some people told him afterwards they had the greatest sense of well-being once the healing was over. Others just thanked him, got up and staggered off with that little bit of time he had bought them to get a head start on whatever demons happened to be chasing them.

Spock switched off the light in the bathroom and came out. "In that case, Mr. McCoy, between us I would think you should be the least coherent."

He gave the man a _are you kidding me?_ look. "I'll..." Sleep when you sleep, he almost said, and changed it to: "...be fine." Then he peeled himself off the pillow that was propping him up and abandoned the bed nearest the hotel door. 

Spock swooped down and picked up his blood-stained shirt from the floor. He started to fold it.

"I'd throw that away," Leonard remarked.

"My spare one is nearly fifty miles south of here," Spock replied in his dry way.

"We're not here to attract attention. I have a t-shirt in my bag you can put on." Before Spock could say no, Leonard reached into his duffel bag, pulled out a t-shirt at random and threw it at the agent's head. The world kind of spun for a moment from the sharp movement. Leonard returned to the bed and sat down on its edge. Luckily Spock was too busy staring at the t-shirt to notice.

"This will not fit," the man said.

"You're skinny as hell. It'll fit," Leonard said.

Well, he amended privately, maybe Spock was right after all. The man's torso was so long that the t-shirt stopped right beneath his navel.

Leonard put a fist to his mouth and turned a laugh into a cough. 

"What is a... Tardis?" Spock questioned, staring down at the logo plastered across his chest.

"No idea," Leonard lied, rifling through his duffel bag for a second t-shirt. "Got it at a thrift store on my way through Missouri. It's probably from a movie."

"That does not explain the British police box." Spock pinched the fabric with distaste. 

"Spock," said Leonard, annoyed, "are you seriously going to quiz me about pop culture right now?"

Spock considered Leonard for some seconds. Then his eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction. "Are you going to pass out?" he inquired.

"No."

"Your skin color is abnormal."

Leonard grabbed the handle of his duffel bag and carted the heavy thing toward the bathroom. 

"If you pass out while in the bathroom," Spock went on to say as he shifted aside for Leonard to lumber past him, "and the door is locked, I will not be able to assist you."

"You wouldn't help me anyway," Leonard snapped and slammed the door shut. Then he jerked it open again in order to eye the other man. "Can I trust you not to leave the room?"

"No."

"Fuckin' figures," he muttered and shut the door again, turning the lock.

He placed the bag on the toilet seat and eased himself down to the tiled floor beside it. Considering the circumstances, at least he still had possession of the gun and the car keys.

The tiles were cold, and Leonard shivered, his palms pressed against it. Then he put one of his hands against his forehead.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

* * *

  
Christopher Pike had no liking for fools. It took him a few seconds longer than normal to remind himself not to shred what was left of Decker's already fragile mind. He decided to settle for invoking a deep-seated fear of what would happen the next time Decker went against his orders.

"I told you not to follow McCoy!" he snarled at the back of the man's head.

Decker pulled in his shoulders and like a frightened child clutched at his right hand. "Pig almost took off my goddamn trigger finger, Chris."

Christopher was tempted to pull out his own gun and shoot the idiot in the back of the head. "You disobeyed me," he said, the words biting. Although Decker's body did not move, Chris felt the flinch of the man's mind.

"Can't let the McCoy man die," Decker whispered. "Can't. Fed was gonna get him."

Chris closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. He didn't want McCoy working with the agent, that was true, but he wanted Decker tailing McCoy even less. At this point they were all walking on thin ice, where one step astray would lead to complete disaster. 

"What else?" he asked, opening his eyes, feeling a scritch-scratch of something evasive circling through Decker's mind. "Tell me."

Decker rocked forward and rubbed the knuckles of his uninjured hand against his beard. "What else, boss?" he echoed. "Don't know. You think McCoy made it?"

He knew for a fact McCoy was upstate. "You know where he was staying. How?"

Decker shook his head like a dog and sat up abruptly. "Where is this?" he asked, finally becoming more cognizant of his surroundings. "Chris?"

At that hint of suspicion, the sheriff came around the back of the chair to face him, schooling his face into a calmer visage. "Easy there, Matt," he placated Decker. "I ran interference with one of my men who almost caught you and brought you out here to the cabin. Shock," he added, looking pointedly down at Decker's hand, "must of had a strong hold on you."

Decker blinked once, then nodded. "That fight was something else," the man admitted before grinning slightly. "I'm pretty fuckin' sure I hit the son of a bitch though!"

"Good," Chris muttered. He crossed his arms. "Listen to me, Matt—you can't take stupid chances like that again. Gunfire at a local motel: it always makes the headline news. That said, you need to lay low and stay out of trouble. Don't leave this cabin for a few days, understood?"

Decker lost his grin. "But I have to hunt, Chris."

"You've done enough for now," Chris assured him humorlessly and turned for the door.

Decker shot to his feet, bellowed, "No _fucking_ way!"

Chris stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and looked straight ahead.

"What if it goes out tonight, huh, while I'm stuck the fuck in _here_ and it kills?! I have to hunt! You can't do this to me!"

"I can," Chris said softly. "Sit down."

Decker sat, still ranting. "No way am I gonna hide like a pussy! I'll hunt it and when I find it, I'll slit its fucking throat! I swore that to God and to my little brother, Christopher, so just—you c-can't—what—mons—" His tongue tripped over several words before he stuttered to a stop. 

A moment later, Chris released his choke hold on Decker's thoughts just enough so that the man's brain would not hemorrhage. "You do what I say," he said. "Stay here. Be silent. Be nothing."

And with that he left the man spellbound to the chair. They would resume the conversation, he decided, when there was a good reason to come back.

* * *

  
Leonard managed to doze in sporadic starts and stops, the atmosphere of his dreaming wrought with the tension he felt when awake. Meanwhile Spock did not stir from the bed next to his as Leonard fidgeted or intermittently reassured himself the gun was safely tucked in his grasp under his pillow. The man breathed evenly, quietly, like he was truly asleep. But Leonard still had the sense that Spock was more aware of every sound and shifting shadow than he was. The buzz of energy around the bed said as much; if Spock himself wasn't keeping vigil, his magic was. 

And it continued to creep ever closer towards Leonard. 

Leonard gritted his teeth against the intrusion and rolled to face the drawn curtains of the hotel window, running a finger across the warmed metal of the gun's barrel. He thought he could smell gunpowder and a hint of Spock's blood. 

Would he really have to use the thing when Spock attacked? Could he?

The answer had to be yes.

All-at-once Leonard's hand felt cold, so shockingly cold. He became conscious that it wasn't the temperature of his flesh that had changed but the gun itself. Sucking in a small breath, Leonard let go of it and withdrew his hand from beneath the pillow. He whispered into the dark, "What're you doing?"

When no reply came he eased onto an elbow and tugged the gun into sight. But touching it again, the metal felt warm. The cold had been a figment of his imagination.

Or, he supposed, biting down on his lower lip, a warning.

He slid off the bed, weapon in hand, and went to the window. The parking lot beyond the hotel was a stretch of black, glistening in places where rain had been left behind on pavement and windshields.

Something white stood down below. It turned up a round face to look Leonard in the eyes. Leonard backed away without realizing it until he bumped into a solid mass from behind. 

Spock said, unnervingly close to his ear, "What is it?" 

But the man did not wait for Leonard's answer. He went to the window himself and drew back one of the curtains. After a moment Spock let the curtain fall again.

His head turned in Leonard's direction. "What was it?" he queried.

Leonard removed his thumb from the safety on the gun, leaving it engaged. Spock hadn't seen the same thing. Of course not.

"Nothing," he answered, and went back to his bed.

Spock remained standing by the window for a long time, staring through the open space between the curtain fold and the glass pane. Eventually Leonard gave up on watching the tall silhouette, muttered "For fuck's sake, go to sleep," and stuffed his head under his pillow. The smell of gunpowder was so overpowering it burned his nostrils but he made do. 

When he dragged his head out again it was morning and Spock was gone.

* * *

  
Early morning turned to late morning.

The car was still sitting in the parking lot. Leonard tossed its keys from hand to hand, trying to decide what this meant. Did the agent intend to return, or had he snuck down to the lobby to call for local law enforcement?

Leonard was close to convincing himself of the latter when someone knocked on the hotel room's door.

He cursed after he looked through the peep hole and jerked the door open, snapping at the man on the other side, "Where the fuck were you!"

"Good morning," said Spock, and moved past Leonard into the room, balancing a cardboard multi-cup holder with one hand. He extended his arm. "Yours is the left one."

Smelling coffee, Leonard grabbed the cup, only belatedly remembering who was doing the offering. So he popped off the plastic top to peer down at the dark liquid with suspicion. Then he sniffed it for good measure.

Tone bland, Spock mentioned, "I forewent the cream and sugar. Also the poison."

"Yeah, all right," Leonard said grudgingly, because his coffee addiction pretty much guaranteed he would be desperate enough to drink the stuff even if it happened to be poisoned. He raised the styrofoam cup to his mouth and took a sip. His eyebrows lifted in pleasant surprise. "Not bad," he commented. "Where'd you get it?"

"There is a gourmet bakery two streets north of here." Spock turned away slightly to remove the second cup from the holder and sip from it. "It stood to reason they would serve coffee a grade or two above your usual gas station fare."

This coffee was clearly meant to be savored. As Leonard leisurely inhaled the scent, he also eyed the paper bag dangling from Spock's fingers. "What else did you bring me?"

Spock lowered his cup. "There is one bagel."

"Well," Leonard said, pleased, reaching for it, "thanks."

Spock shifted to hold the bag out of range. "It is mine."

"Bagels aren't gluten-free," Leonard pointed out, stepping forward.

Spock folded his arms behind his back, thereby hiding the bag, and said primly, "My dietary restrictions can be flexible."

He stared at the man and contemplated if a fight over a piece of bread was worth it. In the end, his decision was motivated less by hunger and more by pride. "Give me that bagel, Spock."

"No."

"Is it worth dying for?" He made a show of reaching around to his back where his gun was tucked away. 

"Yes," Spock said, and walked off to the corner table.

 _Son of a bitch_ , thought Leonard. He left the gun where it was.

Across the room, Spock set aside a small container of cream cheese and began to unwrap his breakfast. The stupid bagel looked and smelled ridiculously good. "We should discuss today's plans."

Leonard couldn't figure it out. How did Spock win? 

His stomach gurgled, also upset. Leonard had to take a large gulp of hot coffee to shut it up.

"Plans?" he repeated, sounding dubious. "There is no plan. There is no 'we' either. I'm in charge."

"We know we are searching for a serial killer," Spock continued on. "I suspect you began to realize the true nature behind the drownings after you crossed into Missouri." He paused. "The killer is not human."

"You mean he's a mage."

Spock glanced at Leonard. "I have yet to encounter a magic user who is not human."

"Wait," said Leonard, putting his coffee cup down on the nightstand between their beds, "that doesn't make any sense. It has to be a human—and a damned powerful one at that!" 

But it seemed Spock did not agree. "I should inform you, in your haste to flee my father's house you missed the map of Arkansas. Two towns were marked on that map, both near a body of water where a series of fatal drownings occurred during the 1940s."

"Is that how you found me?" Leonard wanted to know.

The man gave a slight nod. "Affirmative. Once I determined the correlation between the towns, tracking you became much simpler. But that is not my point, Mr. McCoy. In my research, I also located the record of a similar instance in Louisiana in 1927. If the killer is human, he is nearing or over one hundred years of age."

"Then it's a cult," countered Leonard. "God knows sacrificial drownings aren't anything new to this world." He thought for another moment. "If not a cult, then it could be a family rite of some kind." 

"Those theories were dismissed."

"By who?"

Spock gave him a long look. "By persons more knowledgeable than ourselves."

"Oh..." Leonard murmured, feeling a bit mischievous. "You mean like people from the super-secret government agency dedicated to containing the American werewolf population that the public isn't supposed to know exists? Those ones?" 

And wouldn't Scotty be proud that Leonard had remembered one of his favorite conspiracy theories?

Spock's mouth twitched. "There are no such things as werewolves, Mr. McCoy."

"I stay off the streets during a full moon all the same."

"Then you agree," the other man inserted smoothly, "there is the possibility we are not looking for a human."

Leonard resisted the urge to throw up his hands. He asked instead, "So if this... whatever-it-is was picked up as a case by a government somebody, how come it's still unsolved?"

Spock turned back to his uneaten bagel and began to cut into it with a knife. "I cannot answer that question."

"Because you won't?"

"Because I do not know the answer." 

Standing there, arms folded and watching Spock, Leonard suddenly had a nasty suspicion. "What if," he said, "all of this has nothing to do with me?"

Spock's hands stilled in the act of spreading cream cheese across the open face of the bagel.

"What if—" Leonard began again slowly, only to find he couldn't finish. A ball of dread had taken up residence in the pit of his stomach.

Memory blurred the hotel room, transformed it into a very familiar study. He could picture Sarek's dead body on the floor. Around the body everything had been upended, strewn about by some unknown whirlwind of power. Leonard taken the maps based on the assumption Sarek had been using them when he died.

But what if the maps had been in that study for far longer, already tracing out the path of a serial killer as part of a different job? Leonard, in his folly, had picked them up without a second's thought and run with them.

He sat down on the edge of the nearest bed—Spock's—and forced himself to breathe.

 _Don't panic,_ he thought. _Panic is bad. Panic is pointless._

Joanna was dying, and only now he saw the gaping error in his logic. What if he has wasted over a month's time to come as far as Iowa only to solve another man's case?

Mother _fuck_.

Leonard's head shot up, and he looked at Spock. "I need to call my father," he said, not caring how he sounded. He pushed off the bed and went for his duffel bag, where he had stashed the cell phone he had confiscated from Spock. Once he had it, he shoved it into Spock's hands and ordered, "Get him on the line—and keep the games out of it."

Spock stared at him and ignored the phone.

Leonard pulled the gun out of his waistband and flipped off the safety. "I may not hurt you over a bagel," he said, "but I will hurt for the sake of my family. Now fucking _do it_."

Spock pressed a single button on the phone. In the next instant it was ringing. A voice Leonard didn't recognize answered the call.

"This is Agent Spock," Spock said.

"Agent," the unidentified man replied, "you almost missed the second check-in. I was about to notify Headquarters. Where are you?"

"My location remains classified, but your concern has been noted. What is your current status?"

"I'm outside the house. Barnes is covering the hospital. The Chapel woman came back to town last night but otherwise there's nothing new to report. Sources indicate her communications to be clean."

"Thank you. The update is always appreciated. Is David McCoy within the residence?"

"Yes, sir."

Spock said, still looking at Leonard, "Please exit your vehicle and approach the home. You are to give your phone to Mr. McCoy."

A beat of silence came through the line. Then, "Sir, you've asked me to expose my cover."

"I am well-aware of that fact, Agent. Present circumstances require a change in protocol. I am authorizing you to make contact with the family."

Apparently Spock did have that authority because Leonard heard the sounds of a car door opening and closing through the phone speaker. He almost held his breath as the agent rang the doorbell and, seconds later, knocking could be heard as well.

" _What do you want?_ "

Until that moment Leonard had never known his father to be so unapologetically rude to someone. 

David McCoy's voice grew louder. " _Take—What in blazes? What is this? Hello?_ "

Without a word, Spock handed the cell phone to Leonard. Leonard took three steps back and put it to his ear, lowering the gun slightly so that its muzzle pointed toward Spock's feet instead of his chest.

"Dad?" he said, unsurprised when his voice cracked. He spoke quickly, "You're not talking to me, understand? This is Federal Agent Spock's phone."

" _Agent Spock?_ " The words came out a bit strangled but otherwise David had caught on. " _I don't know any Spock. What the hell do you want?_ "

"I'm fine. I'm—I can't tell you where I am, but never mind that. Are you and Jo all right?"

" _I don't think that's any of your business, and I don't thank you for asking!_ "

Leonard pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it funny. What was that code for?

His father went on to say, " _Over a month you knuckleheads have been camped out on my doorstep and all you've done is give me more grief on top of the grief I've already got! So you can keep your bullshit about my son to yourself, you hear? I'd sooner expect a pig to fly than accept my boy killed someone!_ "

Leonard winced. "Easy there, Dad. Spock is Sarek's son."

" _Sorry for your loss_ ," Leonard's father tossed in rather flatly. " _Now if you don't mind, I've got an appointment to keep with my granddaughter's doctor._ "

"If Clay isn't living up to his promise, I'll gut him."

" _The man's an ass but he seems able enough to keep her goin'._ "

"Good," Leonard replied, relieved. "Listen, Dad, I might be at a dead end here. If I come back—"

He was interrupted: " _Mr. Spock, I might as well stop you right here. I don't know where my son's gotten to and even if I did, I'd tell him to stay far away from the likes of you._ "

Leonard looked at Spock and his mouth twitched, thinking it was far too late for that warning. "He says he knows I didn't kill his father but there's still the question of whether or not he intends to let me hang for murder."

Spock responded, cool as ever, "If you help me catch the culprit, Mr. McCoy, I may consider letting you go."

Leonard hoped his father couldn't hear that. "But I'm working on him, I promise."

" _I have to hang up now,_ " David insisted, which probably meant the agent at his door was getting ansty.

"Wait, one more thing. As soon as this call is over I'll ring the house phone. Hang up on me, but make sure you write the number down. If you need me, you call it. If somebody else answers, don't talk to him. Got all that?"

His father hmphed. " _I was born at night but not last night, mister_." Then the line went dead.

Leonard tapped his foot with impatience as he dialed his father's home phone number. The call was picked up on the fourth ring. Even though his father did as instructed and hung up immediately, Leonard was almost disappointed they didn't say anything else to each other. He placed Spock's phone in his pocket for safe-keeping.

"I trust you are satisfied," Spock said from his chair.

"I don't know that satisfied is the word," Leonard retorted, engaging the safety on the gun and tucking it away. "It shouldn't be this convoluted just to talk to him."

"Indeed," Spock said too softly. "But imagine how you would feel if the act were impossible."

Leonard felt a pang at that. It took him a moment to find his voice. "You know I'm sorry, don't you, Spock? If I'd known what would happen—"

"Enough," the other man interrupted, standing up. "I want no apology."

"Then what do you want?"

Spock's dark eyes glittered queerly at him. "I want us to return to Riverside, Mr. McCoy—so that you may meet James Kirk."

* * *

  
_What was it about fucking James Kirk that was so special?_ Leonard would wonder later on the car ride out of Iowa City. It seemed a portentous thing that both a federal agent and a county sheriff were pushing him in that direction.

And if Kirk was key to whatever mystery Spock and Pike pursued, did that necessarily mean Kirk held answers for Leonard too?

Somehow, Leonard thought not.

* * *

  
Jim rolled over onto his back, thinking there was no comfortable place anywhere in his mind that he could crawl into and hide. The memories of his mother had been soured by her death, and the rest of the memories—what few that weren't nightmarish—had been part of the boy before the lake. That boy had never come back. 

Jim supposed the monster ate him. Wasn't that what all monsters did?

He hated these thoughts. If he could physically pull them out of his head, he would. Some nights they circled and circled and finally engulfed him until he rose from the bed in the morning with the torment at which they excelled carved into his face. Those times he contemplated peeling off his skin with his fingernails to see what really lay beneath the flesh.

But he never did. He was a coward that way.

He had made it through last night only a little worse for the wear. At one point he had felt his bones shifting but he had stretched his limbs as far as he could, to each end of the bed, and forced them to stay where they were. The bedroom had grown terribly cold, then, until his breath was a puff of white in the air. He hadn't cared how angry his resistance made it. When he stopped resisting, he stopped being Jim. Jim wasn't so bad in comparison to what else he might become.

The sun had returned while he imagined he was walking a different city and sidewalk than the ones he knew. He didn't understand why he traveled in these imaginings, but he did know that sometimes he came upon something in them that he thought might help him. Like in real life, however, he could never communicate his need properly.

Sleepily Jim blinked at the ceiling. He felt a weight settle at the end of the bed, directly on top of his feet. When it began to purr, he sighed through his nose. 

"Can't you sit somewhere else?" he asked the cat.

Jinx kneaded his owner's socks and ignored the nonsensical words.

Jim reached up to brush at his hair. "Some of us have to go to work." When he realized he was trying to reason with a cat, he blew out a breath and moved his feet.

Jinx, no doubt having decided he didn't want to relinquish his favorite new perch, dug his claws through the cotton socks and into flesh. Jim hissed and sat up, latching onto the cat around its pudgy middle and hauling it sideways.

Jinx spat at him, declaring, " _Mrrr'www!_ "

"Shut up," Jim said, and dumped Jinx onto the floor. 

The cat dashed under the bed and out the other side to leap onto the top of Jim's chest of drawers. From there, he narrowed his eyes at Jim and swished his tail in agitation.

Jim flicked his middle finger at the angry feline, then half-fell out of bed and shuffled towards his bathroom. When he removed his socks, he saw that tiny red welts had puckered up on the tops of his feet. He gave them a cursory swipe with rubbing alcohol and stripped off the rest of his clothes.

After a bad night, he never had high hopes for the following day. This day, in particular, it seemed was meant to test him. He wondered almost objectively just how bad it was going to be.

* * *

  
Leonard wanted lunch. Spock had other plans. It didn't matter that Leonard was driving the car. Because of these 'other plans' and Spock's sheer tenacity, Leonard ended up following a country highway outside the town limits of Riverside. He pulled the car into a large muddy lot filled with tractor trailers, eighteen wheelers, and Ford pickups at the instructions of his backseat driver and killed the engine.

"What's this place?" he asked as he exited the car.

"This is where Mr. Kirk works."

Leonard closed the driver-side door and zipped up his jacket, eyeing the varied sizes of the buildings. Warehousing, he thought to himself. "Can we just walk in?"

"We should have to provide identification, sign waivers for liability, then change into the appropriate safety gear."

That sounded like a hassle to Leonard.

"However, upon my last visit, the administration was... notably relaxed. I suspect nothing has changed in that regard."

Leonard eyed his companion. "You're saying you didn't report their negligence?"

"I will, once my business in this area is complete," Spock assured him, and started across the parking lot.

Leonard just shook his head, not surprised. He hadn't known Spock all that long but from what he had seen, the man had a disturbing sense of dedication to his own ambitions. He wondered what Sarek had thought about that characteristic in his son—or if that characteristic was a recent development.

He suppressed a shiver and followed Spock to the front office of the building that likely acted as the main warehouse. 

There, Spock flashed his badge and addressed one of the workers as one well-known acquaintance to another. He said, "I need to speak with Mr. Kirk again. Is he available?"

Leonard didn't like the mean look that came into the worker's eyes. 

"Sure he is," the guy said. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and pressed the button on the side, saying, "Towler to Finnegan. You're needed in the office." To Spock, he supplied, "Kirk's in one of the coolers. Finnegan will show you the way."

"Can't you just have the guy come up here?" Leonard butted in, seeing no reason for them to go tromping through a dangerous work zone unless it was necessary.

Towler (Ed Towler, if the name on the breast pocket of his uniform was anything to go by) looked Leonard over. "Are you saying you want me to pull the man off his shift?"

That wasn't what Leonard had said at all but he heard the threat clearly enough. "No, sir," he amended and shut his mouth, cutting his eyes at Spock.

Spock didn't seem to have an opinion on the matter. Leonard cursed him silently.

The fellow named Finnegan showed up, blinking stupidly at everyone until his gaze landed on Spock. The slow, sly grin that formed on his face wasn't at all comforting. "Mr. Spock! Here to see my good buddy Jim again? I sure didn't know he was so popular with you government types." He kept his grin as his gaze transferred to Leonard but Leonard could see Finnegan didn't peg him for a 'government type' like Spock. The man didn't ask any questions about him, though, like it didn't matter.

When Finnegan motioned for them to follow him, Leonard planted his feet and crossed his arms. Both Finnegan and Spock stared at him.

"We need hard hats," Leonard said, looking pointedly at Finnegan's hat. "And reflective vests." His gaze dropped Finnegan's boots. "You have to have some steel toe guards around here. Or am I wrong in assuming your company doesn't value the safety of its visitors as highly as its personnel?" he added acerbically.

Towler's sour expression was worth the jab. "Get them suited up," the supervisor snapped at Finnegan.

Finnegan ducked out of the office without another word and led them to a side room. Leonard had to show Spock how to put on the toe guards. The agent stared down at the metal contraptions in dismay, like they were spoiling the effect of his shiny black shoes.

"When a beam drops on your foot, you'll thank me later," Leonard told him.

"I doubt that."

Leonard put his hard hat on and bared his teeth. Then he turned his unfriendly smile onto Finnegan and said, "You can take us to Kirk now."

"Sure," the man muttered and hurried out the door ahead of them.

* * *

  
In hindsight, Leonard should have never made that comment about the beam. He shouldn't have. Fate had a way of turning his words on him—or, in this case, literally trying to flatten him with them.

The carton boxes on the skids were stacked five high. When they started to wobble, then to fall, Leonard had nowhere to go. He had already shoved Spock aside. And now he was going to be crushed to death because of his decision to save the nation's most bone-headed federal agent.

Scotty was going to die laughing over the irony of this. If they gave Leonard a funeral, the man would watch from an unmarked van two blocks over and laugh so hard. Then he would call Leonard's spirit back from the Great Beyond and say, "You fucking moron! Worst way to die!"

As the boxes fell, the only thing Leonard could think to do was to close his eyes so he did. Because he had his eyes closed, he had no idea who rammed into him out of nowhere and sent him sprawling onto the dirty warehouse floor. When his eyes shot open in the wake of a deafening crash, he saw he had missed death by mere inches.

Leonard grabbed the elbow of his savior digging into his stomach and shoved the upper torso off of his. The person went with a grunt of pain. 

Leonard sat up and said, "Holy _fuck_."

Slowly surfacing from his shock, he became aware that the man at his side had hardly moved. The reason was evident. While Leonard had escaped the boxes, the other guy hadn't. One of his legs disappeared at the knee under a mountain of crushed cardboard and splintered wood. The man's face was bloodless, sweat-covered.

But he hadn't uttered a word.

Leonard shifted to his knees and ignored the way his hands were shaking slightly as he laid them gently against the man's breastbone. No sign of blood, he thought. He focused inward, looking for internal injuries. None.

But there was a thread of pain. If he reached for it, to find its source...

The pain nearly swallowed Leonard whole. He heard himself say, "Don't move," and repositioned one of his hands on the thigh of the partly visible leg. The femur was fine, the knee strained but whole. Below that, he felt the swelling around the lower bones, although neither was broken.

When he reached the ankle joint, the world whited-out like an electric shock.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. If it weren't for the boot, the foot would have been turned completely around. Leonard instinctively knew this and had to dispel the image in his head quickly, fighting down a strong wave of nausea.

"Will removing the boxes injure him further?" a voice said to his right.

Leonard jerked back, but his magic kept moving deeper into the leg to catalog the rest of the damage. It was like information filtering in from the back of his brain. He realized in that moment he had been talking the entire time, describing what he felt. 

And Spock, crouched next to him, had been listening. Leonard didn't dare look at the injured man; hopefully the poor bastard had passed out.

Spock repeated the question.

Leonard considered the mess and the angle of the leg. Nothing was under it but ground. "I don't know," he said at first, before an idea came to him. He turned to face Spock. "Can you shift the boxes the way you did that bed? There's a chance if they're moved by hand accidental pressure could be placed on the leg, but with a force that can project outward—"

"The control is infinitely finer," Spock finished, catching on. "I believe I can."

Leonard caught at Spock's sleeve as the man started to focus his attention and his magic on the boxes. He warned, "Try not to rattle any of them."

"I will do it properly," retorted Spock, "on the condition that you can refrain from breaking my concentration, Mr. McCoy."

Leonard just said, "Get on with it," and placed one hand on the injured leg again. When he dared to sneak a glance at the face of the person his power was currently running through, he saw he was being watched.

The guy was still sweating but some of his paleness had receded. His eyes were bright blue and eerily intelligent.

"Sorry," Leonard said, then added, "Thanks." 

He cleared his throat and tried for the professionalism that doctors always had on television. "You've, ah, broken your ankle. We're going to get you out first and then fix you up—but in the meantime you gotta stay absolutely still. Sound good?"

The man gave him the barest of nods.

Leonard was just grateful the fellow hadn't started screaming bloody murder for the whole of the warehouse to hear. People tended to do that once they understood the help being given was through unnatural means.

Since he was thinking about the warehouse itself, Leonard lifted his head and surveyed the area. That brat Finnegan was long gone. Maybe he had run off to get help but somehow Leonard doubted it. He was the one after all who had put Leonard and Spock in this spot to wait, claiming it was safer if he walked the rest of the way to the cooler and called Kirk over to meet them. 

"He's on that piece of junk we call the Caterpillar," the worker had said, "and he's not real tame with it. Wouldn't want either of you gettin' hurt."

Leonard hadn't thought much of it at the time, and then thought even less about it once Spock had grimaced down at the vest fastened over the outside of his coat as though he had endured it too long and started to take the thing off. Leonard had asked the man what the hell he thought he was doing. Spock had then spouted some kind of statistics on the likelihood of the reflective vest preventing an accident. 

They had both heard the sound of a forklift running along the opposite aisle. Leonard had assumed it was Kirk finally making an appearance.

Then the tower of stacked skids had shuddered ominously, and tilted, having been moved by the mysterious forklift and its driver from an angle they couldn't see.

It would have been a terrible accident—and a deliberate one, Leonard now realized.

Finnegan would claim he had told Kirk about the visitors and the rest was anyone's guess. It smelled of a setup to Leonard.

The thigh muscle under his hand twitched, drawing Leonard out of his thoughts. He felt his own muscles twitch too as he drew in a breath. The air was charged, had the smell of ozone. Spock's eyes were closed, his mouth parted slightly from the intensity of his concentration. The spell had to be nearly ready.

Leonard told the body under his hand to be calm. To the body's owner, he spoke out loud. "You might feel easier if you close your eyes."

The guy blinked at him a few times before focusing resolutely on the slow, almost mesmerizing lift of Spock's hands like he didn't want to miss this magic show for the world. Leonard had a feeling later on he was going to regret ever crossing paths with this person.

Leonard felt the moment the spell snapped into place. The boxes shot outward, away from them, like a spray of bullets. The impact of some of the boxes against whatever was blocking their path, another skid or a wall, was like gunfire to Leonard's ears. He wasn't aware he had been holding his breath until he released it after the spell had died.

Spock dropped his arms, and his shoulders sagged. 

Leonard couldn't imagine the amount of energy it cost to fling more than a ton in weight across a room.

Now that the leg was free, Leonard ordered the injured man again to remain as still as possible and shifted his crouch so he could reach the ankle. The leg was straight, facing forward; the foot was bent sideways.

Healing the bones in the wrong position would leave this man a permanent cripple. They had to be reset beforehand. 

This was where the line was drawn between science and magic. He knew he didn't have the medical training for this. What he had was an innate sense of the body and how it needed to be to work properly. Was that as good as knowledge?

Doctors like Clay Treadway said not. They said healing mages were essentially charlatans with luck on their side. 

Other doctors argued that the healing arts had been practiced by humanity long before medical licenses came along. In many cultures it had been believed, or was believed, that faith had more power than science. Perhaps that wasn't so strange a concept now that they knew the supernatural existed.

Sweat gathered along Leonard's forehead. He felt eyes on him and met them, deciding that the choice should be made by the patient.

"I can heal this," he said, "or you can go to a hospital."

"Yes for the first option, no for the second," Spock added, which did not make much sense to Leonard but he didn't see a need to argue about it.

The man just looked between them for a long second. Finally he nodded his agreement.

Leonard moved to kneel on either side of the foot. "I have to reset the ankle first. It'll hurt."

His patient lifted both eyebrows as if to say _don't you think it hurts already?_

"What about the boot?" Spock wanted to know, shifting forward slightly.

"Sit your scrawny ass down, Spock," Leonard snapped in the agent's direction. "You're listing."

Spock pressed his mouth into a flat line.

"And the boot and sock can stay," added Leonard. "As long as I can touch the skin in close proximity to the injury, I can heal it." He doubted with the massive swelling of the foot that they could get the boot off anyway.

But first things first. He inched his fingers under the hem of the jeans and touched the skin there. It helped to close his eyes and form a picture of the way the joint should be aligned in the socket. He let his fingers walk downward to the top of the sock and then onto the boot, hearing faintly a gasp.

"He's going to move," Leonard murmured. "Pin him." He didn't open his eyes to see if the order was being followed.

He snapped the foot back into place with a sudden, sickening jerk. The patient screamed; the scream was quickly muffled by something. Leonard blocked it all out and shoved both hands back under the jeans of the leg which was now trying to move enough to kick him and poured his energy into the healing. He sent tendrils of magic to stabilize the tendons; he called tiny chips of broken bone back to their places; he said to the blood _flow but don't spread_ , _rush but don't drown_.

Pain sang under him, through him, in him until the healing was done. It settled behind his eyes and at the back of his head after he finally disconnected from the skin and the magic. Sitting up made him dizzy, his mouth dry.

"He passed out," Spock said, voice hoarse.

Leonard nodded, then sat back on his ass to stare at Spock. "You look like shit," he remarked eventually.

Spock was ghost-pale, his hair and eyes seemingly darker by contrast. And he looked weirdly frail to Leonard in that long trench coat.

"You look no better," came the reply.

Leonard turned his gaze to the slack face of the man who had saved his life.

"I had intended for this meeting to be less... adventurous," Spock said, following a moment of silence. 

"Screw the meeting, Spock. The last thing I want to do right now is pander to some kid. Somebody nearly killed us!"

Spock made a quiet sound, like the faintest of sighs.

Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose and started to dredge up an apology for his short temper. He didn't have a chance to apologize, though, because Spock spoke instead, sounding as if there was an irony in his life he was still trying to puzzle out:

"Mr. McCoy, allow me to introduce you to James T. Kirk."

Leonard stared, bemused.

Spock stared back. 

Then he added, "I would complete the introductions but I fear it would be moot, given that Mr. Kirk is currently unconscious."

Leonard's gaze dropped to the person laid out between them, everything clicking into place.

He said the most succinct thing he could think of since he had no extra energy to spare: " _Fuck_."

Spock did sigh this time. "Indeed."


	12. Part Eleven

They settled for hiding Kirk in a back corner of the warehouse.

"It's fucking dusty enough," Leonard said as he dropped his burden's shoulders to the floor. "So what's the plan?"

"We were set up."

"No shit, Sherlock."

Spock gave him a _shut up and let me talk_ look. "Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Mr. Kirk was set up to take responsibility for our 'accident'. That said, I would think the real culprit has made certain he will not be caught in the act."

"I didn't see any cameras."

"My point precisely. Which means," Spock added, "we are safe from detection as well." He took a moment to study the unconscious man at their feet. "How long before he wakes?"

Leonard squatted down and pried open one of Kirk's eyelids. "Hell if I know, Spock. But if you want him awake, I could slap him."

"Will he be able to walk?"

Leonard grimaced. "He shouldn't in my opinion but he could. It'll hurt like a bitch though."

"He has to play his part, or he will be detained. Subsequently so would we."

"Right," Leonard said and drew back his hand. He hit Kirk's cheek with just enough force to sting but not bruise.

Kirk's head lolled. He didn't rouse.

Leonard hit him again, this time eliciting a groan. "Time to wake up," he said, leaning over the man. When Kirk's eyes opened and blinked in confusion, Leonard added, "At least you aren't dead."

To say Kirk came up swinging when the presence above him finally registered would be an understatement.

" _Holy fuck_ ," Leonard snarled as he fell back on his ass, clutching his nose. "Spock! The fucker just head-butted me!"

Spock was too busy pinning Kirk down to reply. Or maybe he didn't reply because he didn't much care that Leonard's nose was bleeding from the impact with James Kirk's forehead.

The agent ordered in a hard tone, "Calm down, Mr. Kirk."

Kirk thrashed down under Spock's weight and retaliated by trying to bite off the agent's nose. It was the response of a wild animal.

Leonard took his hand from his face and snapped his fingers near the corner of Kirk's eye, saying, "Hey, hey, kid!" When that didn't work, he shouted in Kirk's ear, "HEY!"

The guy winced and stilled for half a second.

"Stop kicking your legs, dumbass," Leonard told him. "I'm not fixing your damn foot a second time."

Kirk heaved a breath and stared at him, a lot of messages in his eyes and none of them polite.

Leonard grimaced as he wiped at the blood under his nose with the back of his hand. "Yeah, your foot," he repeated. "Remember now? Also," he thumbed in Spock's direction, " _he_ helped."

Kirk's head dropped to the cement with a thunk. The man didn't say anything; he just laid there, breathing hard. Eventually he sneezed.

"Shouldn't have kicked up the dust," muttered Leonard. "Spock, get off him."

"Assure me you are in your right mind," Spock said to the person he still had pinned.

Kirk nodded once, a short jerk of a motion. Spock let go of him and stood up, eyeing the dusty fabric of his pants with distaste. The other two men watched while Spock tried futilely to brush his pants clean.

When Kirk tried to sit up, Leonard put a warning hand on his chest.

"Don't put any pressure on your ankle."

Kirk grunted his understanding and carefully hoisted himself upright. He stared at his legs like he almost couldn't believe they were attached.

"Bet you feel like shit," Leonard guessed.

The guy nodded.

"Well so do I, so don't make any trouble."

Kirk turned his head to look at Leonard, eyes slit. It was a calculating gaze if Leonard had ever seen one. He looked over Kirk's head at Spock. 

"Not very sociable, is he?"

"Neither are you, Mr. McCoy, despite your incessant chatter."

In that moment all Leonard really wanted to do was strangle Spock until he turned purple. "You're asking for it," he warned the agent.

Spock ignored the threat. "Phrase your questions to Mr. Kirk so that the answer format is yes or no, and he will respond."

What the hell? "Why does he come with instructions? He's a human being, not a heartless robot like you!"

But Kirk didn't seem to care that Leonard was defending him. The man was studying his knuckles instead. One of them had been scraped raw, likely when Kirk hit the ground after pushing Leonard out of harm's way.

A sudden urge to grab the hand came over him. He did, intending to inspect it. Kirk tensed and pulled back. Leonard pulled the hand forward. They pulled tug-of-war over the injured knuckles until Leonard snapped, "Stop that! I can fix it!"

Kirk shook his head.

"Stubborn," Leonard accused and flung the hand back at Kirk. He drew his feet under him and stood up. "New plan," he told Spock. "Let's just get the hell out of here."

"Not without Mr. Kirk."

Leonard patted his back pocket and drew out his cigarette pack. Disgusted to find only two cigarettes left and both of them crushed from his fall, he threw the pack to the floor. "What the fuck makes this bonehead so important? Which," he turned his angry gaze down to Kirk, "to make things clear: I know you saved my life, but I also saved you from being a cripple. So we're square."

The guy snorted and rolled to one side to help himself up, coming to stand on his good foot. He wobbled a moment, then tentatively put the other foot on the ground.

Leonard saw him grimace. He returned his attention to Spock. "I'm leaving," he said. "Come with me or stay here. I don't care either way."

When Spock didn't reply, Leonard decided not to feel bad about leaving him behind. Muttering under his breath, he strode out of the hiding spot and back towards a part of the warehouse he thought he recognized.

That was where he came upon a group of workers standing in a half-circle around the mess of boxes and pallets. One of them was yelling. Finnegan stood on the outside of the circle, arms crossed, notably silent. 

Leonard slowed his pace as he came abreast of the group. There was a faint buzz in his ears (his blood pressure was lower than normal, the healing had really zapped him dry), but he figured his anger would be enough to see him to the parking lot.

Unfortunately Finnegan spotted him. The man's initial surprise, however brief, confirmed Leonard's suspicions. He would probably be justified in decking the son of a bitch. 

The guy who had been yelling was Towler, the supervisor, and now the man pushed his way towards Leonard, clearly livid at finding some of the inventory destroyed.

"What happened!" he barked.

"I was gonna ask you that," Leonard replied. "Did somebody have an accident?"

That pulled Tower up short. "You saying you don't know anything about this?"

"Why would I?"

Behind Towler, Finnegan shifted on his feet. "Where's the other guy... and Kirk?"

Leonard shrugged carelessly. "Agent Spock had a few more questions to ask him, I think. I'm just looking for the bathroom." He held Finnegan's stare and drawled, "By the way, thanks a bunch for letting Kirk know where to meet us."

Finnegan pressed his mouth flat. A young, dark-haired man standing next to him paled.

 _Caught you out, you little bastards,_ Leonard thought. 

"Sir!" an excited voice broke into the conversation. A worker came up to Towler, holding in his hands a hardhat. He told the supervisor he had found it near the ruined product.

Towler took it and stared at it long enough that Leonard felt inexplicably cold. He became all-too-aware of his bare head.

"Lose your hat, Mr. McCoy?" the supervisor asked, transferring his gaze to Leonard.

"No," Leonard lied. "I got tired of wearin' it and left it behind."

"Behind where?" taunted Finnegan. "At the scene of the crime?"

Leonard started forward, deciding it would be acceptable to hit the asshole after all.

"I do not think you have the right to accuse anyone," said someone at Leonard's back.

Spock came to stand on Leonard's right. Kirk followed then veered off and circled around the group as if he was curious to take a look at the wreckage.

 _I'll be damned,_ thought Leonard. The kid wasn't limping in the slightest. Except for his clothes being somewhat rumpled, he appeared fine. 

Apparently the act was convincing enough. 

"Kirk, get back here!" snapped Towler. "Why the hell aren't you in the cooler?"

Kirk returned, looking like he couldn't hold a single important thought in his head.

Spock answered on the man's behalf. "I asked Mr. Kirk to escort me. As it is not particularly safe for more than one individual to ride on a forklift, we are on foot." He asked Leonard, "Did you find the restroom?"

"Nope. And not to be rude to the rest of y'all, but I do gotta piss." Leonard motioned at Kirk. "Looks like Spock's bored you enough. Show me to the nearest bathroom, would you? This place gets me turned around."

Spock inclined his head slightly in Kirk's direction as if to grant his permission. "I am certain Mr. Towler will show me the way to the main office. Shall we meet in the parking lot?"

"Sure," Leonard agreed.

Without a word about his assignment, Kirk slunk by his supervisor and headed in an entirely different direction. Leonard followed him, seeing Finnegan clenching his fists as he left. 

He waited until they had turned several corners before he stopped Kirk with a hand to his arm. "You know that bastard Finnegan did this, don't you?"

A muscle twitched in Kirk's jaw but he continued to stare straight ahead.

 _This guy really isn't a talker._ Leonard started to comment about that but noticed that the man had shifted his weight to one foot. "Hell," he said, "I told you to be careful!" He glanced around, saw no one in sight, and held out his hand. "Take it," he urged when Kirk just looked at the hand like an idiot. 

Kirk didn't.

With an exasperated sound, Leonard grabbed the fool's hand. He squeezed it when Kirk jumped slightly. "Be still a minute." 

Leonard closed his eyes but didn't have to concentrate too hard. He could feel the pain that Kirk felt, a throb which started at the ankle and ran up the leg. He drew it out of the body like one would a poison. He took on what he could manage, told the body to think of the ankle as numb, and let go of Kirk's hand. 

Almost immediately, Leonard had to bend forward and plant his hands on his knees. He forced himself to breathe through a wave of light-headedness.

Kirk crouched down to look him in the face. 

"Don't get so close," Leonard warned him. "I might throw up on you."

Kirk straightened up again but hovered at Leonard's shoulder as though he intended to catch Leonard should Leonard decide to topple over in a faint. 

At last, the sickness passed. Leonard eased back to standing fully upright and tucked his hands, which were clammy and shaking, into his armpits. "Forget the bathroom. Just show me the way outta this fucking place."

Kirk obliged him.

* * *

  
Leonard had never been more grateful to see a federal agent's car, even a rental. He made himself comfortable in the driver seat with the intention of leaning back and closing his eyes, but he found it too unsettling to have a face hovering just outside the window. He rolled the window down and said to Kirk like he would to a stray dog, "Why the hell are you still here?"

Kirk gave him a measured stare before turning his back. Leonard watched the man walk away through the side mirror. He stopped looking when he saw Spock approach from the opposite direction and stall Kirk in the middle of the parking lot.

Leonard stared forward out of the windshield, hands twitching. He wished he hadn't thrown away his cigarette pack.

Eventually Spock came around to the passenger side and got into the car. He didn't say anything as he clipped on his seatbelt but he seemed expectant.

Leonard gave in and asked, "What did you tell the kid?"

"I let him know we would be visiting his home."

Leonard slapped at the steering wheel without thinking. The palm of his hand stung. "What the hell, Spock! Isn't it enough that we almost got killed earlier trying to talk to him?"

"Do not take your anger out on the vehicle, Mr. McCoy. While it is insured, it is not mine."

"I'll do whatever I fucking please," Leonard growled back. "That includes using my common sense. It's obvious he's trouble—and honestly I think he's a few bricks shy of a load, too."

Spock turned an icy stare on him. "Is this how you react to a man who saved your life? By thinking the worst of him?"

Leonard almost his upper curl in disgust. "You're no better. I saved _your_ life, and in a heartbeat you'd still throw me to the wolves, wouldn't you?"

"I have my reasons for distrusting you."

"And I've got mine for distrusting our entire fucking world, so don't think this is personal. I'm telling you there is something not right about him, Spock. Call it a gut feeling. Hell, call it a premonition. But if we go down this road any farther, we'll reach a point where we can't turn back, not even to save ourselves."

Spock looked away. "I have long since passed that point."

Leonard was about to retort _I haven't_ but he knew it would be a lie. Maybe that was one of the reasons he hated the man in the seat next to him so much. Spock was evidence of just how far Leonard had gone past the point of no return.

So maybe Kirk was a sign of just how much farther Leonard still had to go.

 _God-fucking-dammit_ , he thought to himself. Reaching to the ignition, he turned the key and started the car. "Do you still want to pick up your clothes?" he asked Spock as he put the car in reverse.

"The opportunity to do so would be appreciated," Spock conceded.

Leonard waited until they had pulled onto the highway before he spoke again. "And after that?"

"We have a meal. Then we go to Mr. Kirk's residence."

"Are we supposed to sit in his yard until he shows up?"

"No," Spock replied. He pulled a hand out of his coat pocket and lifted something for Leonard to see. "We wait inside."

Leonard was momentarily distracted from the road by the key. "Did he give that to you?"

Spock lifted an eyebrow. "Why would he? We are strangers. In fact, it is likely he sees little use in knowing either of us." Spock did not smile but he sounded smug enough as he finished saying, "Which is why I informed him we planned our visit for tomorrow evening."

Meaning they were basically going to jump an unsuspecting man in his own house. "Jesus Christ," Leonard muttered. Spock had to be crazier than Kirk. "We're going to get shot or arrested," he pointed out.

"The risk is necessary."

"Tell me that again," Leonard challenged, "when you're in a six-by-ten cell alongside a guy with a history of homicide and rape."

Spock, the bastard, just blinked at him.

Leonard sped up, thinking if just for a moment—just one—he could get rid of Spock, it would do him a world of good. The fool thought he was invincible. In Leonard's experience, that meant something was bound to come along and prove him wrong. Unfortunately, Leonard might be with him when that happened.

* * *

  
They let themselves into Kirk's house at a quarter past three in the afternoon. Spock had informed Leonard that Kirk would leave work at four, so they had at least an hour to wait before the man showed up. Leonard spent much of that time trying to figure out how not to touch anything he didn't have to and also puzzling out the weirdest mural he'd ever seen on a wall.

On the other hand, Spock had discovered Kirk's cat—or rather the cat had discovered Spock. The two had become immediately enamored with each other.

Leonard cast a sideways glance at his dark-haired companion. "I can't believe that furball likes you."

Spock did not cease stroking the cat along its spine, who liked this very much and showed it by purring loudly like a motor engine. "He is a very pleasant creature."

"She's obviously been spoiled by her owner."

"The cat is male."

"It, then," Leonard amended. "And just FYI—don't let that thing near me. We have a bad history, cats and me."

"Are you afraid of them?"

Leonard snorted and stood up, hearing the springs under the sagging cushion of the sofa groan as he did so. He casually wandered in Spock's direction. The cat stopped purring and slit his eyes in contemplation of Leonard.

Leonard stepped a little closer.

The cat growled deep from its belly.

"A most interesting phenomenon," Spock remarked, shifting the creature in his arms. "I suppose it is the feline's innate sense of character which precludes him from liking you."

Leonard raised his middle finger in response, then went to the window by the door and looked past the curtain. "How much longer?"

"I do not know."

"Have you considered that maybe the guy never comes home straight away?"

"I am told that ninety percent of the time he does in fact go directly from work to home, and home to work."

"By who?"

"The homeowner across the street. She is given to watching the activities of her neighbors."

"Sounds like just your kind of person," muttered Leonard. He let the curtain fall back into place. "Today could be the exception."

"I doubt it. Mr. Kirk was diagnosed with agoraphobia at a young age. Although, given his disability, it may be more apt to say he is intimidated when in public because he perceives he is the focus of unwanted attention."

"Disability?" Leonard echoed sharply, turning around to stare at Spock. "You can't mean a physical disability." Kirk had been perfectly healthy barring the injury caused by the accident. 

Spock gave him an indecipherable look. "He is mute, Mr. McCoy."

But Leonard found himself shaking his head. "Can't be."

"Why not?" Spock sounded curious rather than offended.

"Why do you think?" Leonard snapped back. "I would have noticed."

"You were focused on healing his leg."

Leonard pointed at Spock's left arm. "You broke that wrist a few years ago." When Spock stiffened, Leonard lowered his hand and gentled his tone. "And if you sit too long, you get a cramp in your back that can immobilize you for a few days. That's why you stand all the time."

"Your point is made," Spock said too softly.

Leonard stayed silent only for a second. "I'm not saying they're weaknesses, Spock. Those are just the things I learned while I was fixing your wound. I can't not know it any more than you can probably ignore how long a rosebush has been untended."

Spock's gaze dropped to the cat in his arms. "You are mistaken. I am not my father. It was his gift to communicate with the earth and its children."

"Then what's yours?" Leonard asked, genuinely wanting to know.

Spock raised his head, any willingness he might have had to share contained behind his hatred for Leonard. "I have no gifts."

Leonard would have argued with that, except in that moment they both heard the tell-tale rattle of key in a lock.

The cat leapt from Spock's arms and headed for the kitchen with a loud _mew_.

Leonard swiftly backed away from the door and to Spock's side, where he thought at least Kirk would have the option of who to kill first. He expected something terrible, dramatic, to happen when James Kirk stepped inside.

But Kirk came in, head down, something clutched in his left hand, and dropped a bag by the front door. He shuffled a few feet into the room before he noticed anything amiss. And he might not have noticed them at all, Leonard figured, if Spock hadn't cleared his throat.

The guy's head came up. His grip slacked with surprise and the object he had been holding fell to the floor, bouncing on the rug.

It was a tiny figurine horse.

Kirk didn't make a sound. He stared at them until Leonard began to realize there was a kind of glazed look in the man's eyes and he began to wonder if Kirk hadn't been out drinking after all. Then Kirk stooped down to pick up the figurine. Silently he walked past them to the kitchen. There he went through the motions of feeding his cat.

Leonard had never been more creeped out. He met Spock's eyes.

Spock said, "It seems we are not to be arrested."

"So what now?"

He was about to add _I really think we should get out of here_ when Kirk came back into the living area. This time his face was more expressive, the vacancy in his eyes gone. In fact, the set of his mouth was a clear warning that, by and large, he was not pleased to see them and was considering what he wanted to do about it.

Leonard decided on a course of action. "Hi there. I'm Leonard—Leonard McCoy." Then he pointed at Spock and said, "Blame him. I would have knocked first."

Spock kept his gaze locked on Kirk's. "We are here because we must speak to you without delay."

Kirk turned on his heel, and for a moment Leonard thought the man was going to simply leave them to stand awkwardly in his living room. But he went to the bag left by the door and dug inside it. When he returned, he motioned for them to sit down on the couch and took a seat opposite them in an arm-chair covered in faded pink fabric. He held a pad of paper and an ink pen.

Spock took a seat. Leonard put an arm's length between him and Spock as if that alone would deny the association then sat down too.

Kirk scribbled on the topmost sheet, _You could have at least fed the cat._

As an ice-breaker it was a weird one. Leonard didn't know how to reply.

Then Kirk wrote out, _Why is he with you?_

Before Leonard could ask who the question was meant for, Kirk angled it towards Spock.

 _Well_ , Leonard thought, _that's a kick in the balls._

Spock folded his hands across his lap. "I did not lie, Mr. Kirk. The man next to me can be dangerous, and he is seeking answers. It so happens I am invested in those answers. Therefore I request your cooperation in the matter."

Leonard watched Kirk slam the pad down on the coffee table. He would have done the same thing too. He stood up before Kirk had a chance to. 

"You're an arrogant, manipulative bastard," Leonard hissed at Spock, like he had expected better. "I'm _done_ with this bullshit, Spock. You and the rest of this town can go to hell."

His dramatic exit was hampered by a sofa table which slid across the floor by itself and barred the front door.

Leonard spun around and yelled in consternation, "Who the hell do you think you are? You can't keep me here!"

Spock stood up as well but he wasn't focused on Leonard. He stared at the furniture. "Mr. McCoy, step away from the door."

More pissed than ever, Leonard grabbed the table and moved it out of his way. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob at the same time an invisible force hit his sternum and knocked him sideways. He landed a few inches shy of the coffee table, nearly clipping his head.

All-at-once objects started rattling in the house. A decorative plate came off the wall and shattered on the floor. An empty umbrella stand turned over. The cat streaked by and crawled under the couch. 

Kirk, wide-eyed and pale, grabbed at his hair and shouted something. It wasn't any word Leonard recognized but the message was clear.

Kirk shouted again, _Stop!_

Everything stopped. The angry house fell silent.

And Leonard remembered how to breathe. 

He drew in two deep lungfuls, then gasped out, "What the hell was that?"

Spock was watching Kirk.

Leonard climbed to his feet and demanded of him, "Wasn't that you?"

"No," answered the agent.

Leonard looked at Kirk too. "Shit, just... shit. You didn't tell me he was _haunted_."

Kirk's eyes grew impossibly wider. Because the guy seemed more panicked than outright terrified, Leonard took him by the shoulders and forced him to sit down. 

"Hey," he said, snapping his fingers to pull Kirk's attention away from the messy living room, "no big deal. We've all got some supernatural shit following us around."

Kirk's mouth shaped the word _What?_

"Supernatural shit," repeated Leonard, trying for blasé. "I even know a guy who has a demon for a roommate. Little fucker's about yeah-high, uglier than sin, but really more annoying than evil." He lifted his hand slightly above the height of the chair's arm.

Kirk relaxed somewhat just looking at the hand. 

Leonard didn't know what the kid was getting from all of his blather, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to add, "I've been the object of interest of a super-creepy ghost lately myself."

Kirk pointed at the pad and pen. Leonard handed it to him.

 _Is it ugly too?_ he wrote.

Leonard snorted. "No, not really. It's kinda nondescript, like the outline of a person you see in a fog. All white and mysterious and shit."

Kirk had started to write something else but his pen froze over the paper. After a moment, he put the pad and pen aside.

Spock stepped up to the chair to loom over them. "Have you experienced an event like this before?" he asked Kirk.

The man shook his head.

Leonard leaned forward. "Listen, Mr. Kirk, what Agent Spock means is maybe you've noticed some unusual things happening around the house. Things disappearing and reappearing in different places. Doors open when you know you closed them. That kind of stuff. It wouldn't have to be of this magnitude, where your shit's flipping its lid."

That brought a quirk to a corner of Kirk's mouth. He picked up his pen again, then presented Leonard with a single word.

"Bones?" Leonard read aloud. To Spock, he asked, "That mean something to you?"

"It does not."

Kirk added above the word _I dub thee_.

"What?" Leonard said, confused.

Kirk slid out of the chair, pushing Leonard aside, to coax the cat out from under the couch. Then, resettling with said animal in his lap, he wrote on the pad _Bones, meet Jinx_ and held up both the cat and the paper to Leonard.

Jinx hissed and swiped at Leonard's face.

Leonard backed up a good two feet from the cat and its owner. "You're crazy," he told Kirk. "Why the fuck would anybody call me Bones?"

Kirk propped a ratty sneaker on the table and pointed at it.

"I'm not touching that," he said flatly.

"I think," Spock interjected, "he means to say the name is indicative of your ability to heal broken bones."

Kirk snorted and wrote, _Sort of. Mostly your real name sucks._

Leonard bared his teeth. "Like _James_ is any better, asshole."

_It's Jim._

Leonard crossed his arms. "Fuck off, Jim—and keep that fucking cat away from me too!"

"Cats do not like him," Spock supplied.

Jim gave his cat a smacking kiss on the top of its head then dropped it over the side of the chair. Jinx went for Spock, and the agent obligingly picked the cat up.

Leonard felt trapped, then, because he was fairly certain if he tried the door again he might be tossed back to the floor like a ragdoll and because with Jim in the chair and Spock standing next to it, it was fairly obvious both men planned on giving him grief. Jim Kirk was going to do it for the simple fact he could, and Spock was the kind of man who made a nuisance of himself by existing.

Jim tore off and discarded a used sheet of paper and wrote a new message on a fresh one. It read: _We can trade._

"I understand," Spock said.

If he really did, Leonard thought, he was the only one.

Spock looked his way. "Mr. McCoy, ask the first question."

Put on the spot, Leonard asked the one which seemed the most important to him: "Can I smoke in your house?"

"No," Spock said at the same time Jim shrugged to say he didn't care. 

Though his mouth made a thin line, Spock said nothing else.

"I'll lean out a window," promised Leonard, "so long as no angry spirits take offense to that. Your turn."

Jim scribbled on his pad. _Why are you wanted by the feds?_

Leonard didn't dare look at Spock. "It's a misunderstanding. They think I killed somebody." At Jim's curious scrutiny, he emphasized, "I didn't."

Spock placed the cat on the floor. "I believe it is my turn now. Mr. Kirk, if your condition is not natural, why are you unable to speak?"

Jim dropped his pad.

" _Jesus_ ," Leonard said, appalled. As Kirk pushed out of his chair and moved away, every line of his body radiating anger, Leonard snarled at Spock, "Don't they teach tact at the Academy?"

"It is a relevant question."

"I'm thinking none of this is relevant! All we've done is break into a guy's house and accost him with rudeness! You tell me how this is going to solve a fucking thing for us, Spock. For all we know we're chasing a dead end that has nothing to do with anything. Maybe your father was as off his rocker as—"

" _Be silent_ ," said Spock as he took Leonard roughly by the arm, "or I will silence you."

Leonard shoved at Spock's shoulder. "Just you try!"

The grip on his arm tightened enough to bruise. Leonard formed a fist.

The doorbell rang.

Jim, who had circled back to his chair amid the arguing, quickly wrote a note and held it up.

_Wow, saved by the bell!_

Leonard pushed away from Spock in part-disgust, part-embarrassment. As the doorbell rang again, he snarled at Kirk, "Well fuckin' answer it!"

Jim saluted sloppily and went to the door. He looked through the peephole then drew back with a frown and a line between his eyebrows. 

"Um, hello," said the person on the other side of the door once it was opened.

Leonard pegged him at fifteen years of age.

The kid's eyes darted over Kirk's shoulder and widened at seeing him and Spock. "You have guests!" he exclaimed. "I did not know this! Forgive me for my intrusion, I—I—"

Jim lifted a hand to stop the stuttering and motioned for the newcomer to come inside the house.

Spock said with careful emphasis, "Mr. Chekov... Your presence here is unexpected."

Leonard crossed his arms, pleased that someone had finally managed to mess with Spock's plans.

The kid's eyes grew to the size of quarters. "I remember, you are the Government man! But, Jim..." He turned a troubled gaze to Kirk.

Jim shrugged.

Chekov worried his bottom lip for a second, then asked, "Is your foot better?"

Jim snuck a glance at Leonard and nodded.

Chekov opened a plastic grocery bag he had brought and held out a bandage roll and a heat/ice pack. He flushed as he said, "I vas worried because I know you never go to doctors, and sprains are painful."

 _Broken bones are plenty worse_ , Leonard thought. "I'm sure Jim appreciates you buying that," he offered on the man's behalf. He put on his least bitter smile and held out his hand. "I'm Leonard, by the way."

"Pavel," Chekov introduced himself and reached out his own hand.

The instant they touched, Leonard knew. He dropped Pavel's hand like it had burned him and stared at the man's bare forearms. But he didn't say anything—couldn't say anything.

When he looked up again, he noticed Pavel had frozen. Leonard gave an imperceptible nod of his head and turned away. He hoped the kid left quickly and they never met again. He hoped...

Looking at Spock, he hoped Pavel seemed as plain as possible, because he knew what he'd do if Spock recognized the magic in Pavel and tried to detain him.

No one was un-Marked these days unless they had somehow slipped under the radar like, say, when they emigrated to this country. Just from Pavel's heavy Russian accent, he could guess the kid probably wasn't born American.

He heard the kid say something to Jim, imagined he probably handed Jim the bag of first aid supplies. 

"Spock," Leonard said too calmly, "why don't we go in the kitchen and get something to drink? Let Pavel have a moment with Jim."

"I do not need anything."

Leonard took the man by the elbow and steered him towards the kitchen anyway.

"What," Spock asked coldly, "are you doing, Mr. McCoy?"

"Shut up. I'm trying to make it look like we were invited. Who knows," he added, "maybe Kirk will grow a brain and run out the door while our backs are turned."

"Why do you insist on sabotaging this investigation?"

In the kitchen, Leonard picked the first cabinet door and opened it. Finding it empty, he frowned and chose another one. "Maybe because I didn't want to be a part of it in the first place," he told Spock while he searched for something to put water in.

"Your previous determination to find Winona Davis and her son would imply otherwise."

"That's when I thought there was something to be gained."

"There is something," Spock said. "My father's murderer."

Leonard opened the last cabinet, found two chipped plates, a single cup and a lot of mouse droppings. What the hell did Jim Kirk use for dinnerware? He shut the cabinet door and turned on Spock. "Be logical. What can I add to your search that you don't already know or have the means to acquire yourself? You don't _need_ me, Spock, and I'll be damned if I believe you're doing this just because your old man made you promise to help me. No one's that good of a person."

"Why do my motivations matter? You should concern yourself with your own motivation. Do you intend to let your child die?"

He had only needed the barest of excuses, and Spock had given him an excellent one. Leonard didn't think; he swung. His fist snapped Spock's head back.

But Spock didn't fall. He didn't even flinch. With a great cry, the taller man rammed into Leonard and they hit the counter, knocking a bag of dry cat food to the floor.

He was certain they would have torn each other to shreds if the strangest thing hadn't happened: the kitchen grew bitterly cold, and all of the cabinet doors swung open. The two plates and cup flew above their heads and shattered against the opposite wall.

Spock released his choke-hold on Leonard, and Leonard let go of the man's hair. They stared at the broken dishes.

Leonard felt a puff of air on the back of his neck. He shivered, turned around and found himself grabbing onto Spock's arm for a different reason. " _Look_."

Spock turned too.

The ghost faded out of sight, a wisp of thin white dispersing in the sunlight of the kitchen window.

After it was gone, Leonard swallowed hard. He'd seen the face. Her face.

Fuck. He _knew_ her, without knowing her, because someone else had. She was the dead woman in Pike's memory. 

She was Jim Kirk's mother.


	13. Part Twelve

As soon as he heard the crash in the kitchen, Jim leaned in, gave Pavel a hard hug then shoved the clueless boy out the front door. The stunned expression on Pavel's face was amusing but Jim didn't have time to fully appreciate it. He shut the door and hurried to the kitchen.

What the hell were the two crazies up to now? It was bad enough that they'd invaded his home and stirred up some kind of vengeful spirit. Now they were—

—breaking the last of his dishes? 

Standing in the archway, Jim stared at the mess that had once been his semi-respectable kitchen.

He clenched his fists then clenched his teeth.

What the ever-living _fuck_? This was his house! His!

He looked at the turned backs of the two men, trying to decide which one he wanted to rip into first. He remembered the power backing Spock, who had pinned him down more than once with unfortunate ease. Best to take out the sidekick first.

He walked up to McCoy and shoved him from behind.

The man stumbled forward with a sputter before whipping around.

Jim gave him his fiercest glare.

McCoy's glare was fiercer. "What the fuck was that for?"

Jim suppressed the urge to shove the guy's face into the broken crockery.

Spock twisted at the waist and said, "The ghost is a woman."

For some reason, McCoy made a hiss of displeasure.

 _A woman?_ Jim thought. How did he know that? He let the question show on his face.

Spock tipped his head toward the open cabinet doors. "Apparently she did not appreciate my altercation with Mr. McCoy." There came a pause. "I apologize for the mess."

So his new house-ghost was responsible for shattering the last of his mother's dishware, and yet Spock was apologizing?

Oh, these fuckers had to go. 

Jim grabbed McCoy's arm and dragged him out of the kitchen, fairly certain Spock would follow. Halfway across the living room, McCoy managed to break Jim's grip and dig in his heels.

"Not that I don't _want_ to get the hell out of here, kid, but we need to talk."

Talk is all they'd been doing since Jim came home—talk and try to figure out ulterior motives. Jim felt a headache growing behind his eyes. He knew he was reaching his limit, was running out of time. Their unexpected presence had helped pull him back from an episode when he had first walked in the door, but the itch was steadily growing.

He recalled that he had put the small white horse down in the kitchen. Where was it now? Knocked into some corner?

Damn, he had to find it.

Maybe McCoy saw something of his unsteadiness in his expression. The guy lifted his hands slightly as if to ward off Jim's anger. "Five minutes," he said. "Just five more minutes, and then we're both out of here."

Jim gritted his teeth and looked away. But he nodded his permission.

"Mr. Kirk," Spock began, stepping forward, only to be interrupted by McCoy.

"Can it, Spock. I think he's had enough of your brand of interrogation."

Spock's eyes cut sideways to McCoy. "I thought you said you no longer had an interest in this case."

McCoy crossed his arms. "Changed my mind." Then he turned his attention back to Jim. "Or maybe it's better to say the woman in the kitchen changed my mind."

Jim had a feeling McCoy was trying to prepare him for bad news, so he braced himself.

McCoy released a sigh through his nose. "I gather your mother's been dead a while."

He sounded so matter-of-fact, so _certain_ , that the implication of his words took a little longer than usual to ripen in Jim's brain. When they finally did, Jim went cold. He had to shake his head in denial.

It was a trick.

"Jim," the man standing in front of him said, "this isn't a trick."

Jim sucked in a breath. Did the bastard read minds now? He gulped more air and pointed at the door, ignoring the way his arm wavered. He mouthed the words, _Get out._

Spock spoke. "Do you believe that we can, Mr. Kirk? What will happen if we try to leave, as Mr. McCoy attempted to do earlier?"

This was beyond messed-up. They thought they had him, didn't they, because he had pretended to play nice? Shit, he had _seen_ the kind of stuff Spock could do back at the warehouse. And that Mark on McCoy's wrist—that was the very thing Jim had been taught to avoid. Now he knew why.

They had come here to con him.

They wouldn't succeed. Maybe he was crazy, maybe he was a recluse and a hothead and a thousand other things that made him vulnerable. But Jim was not stupid.

He strode to the front door and jerked it open, anger swelling to the point of bursting in his chest.

There was no ghost. He didn't know why these assholes had decided to target him with their tricks but he wouldn't play along anymore. They could get the fuck out of his life and stay gone.

He could see that Spock intended to argue further, but McCoy turned to the man and shook his head, saying, "Give him a while."

Jim was surprised when the agent conceded, given that he seemed to prefer opposing his companion most of the time.

They walked through the door. McCoy hesitated over the threshold and turned back to Jim.

"Your foot okay?"

An ache had set in once the numbness had worn off, but Jim wasn't about to give the man a reason to stay, no matter how genuine his concern sounded. Leonard McCoy deserved an award for his excellent acting.

Jim settled for staring back in response, not bothering to hide how much he wanted them gone.

"Listen..." McCoy lowered his voice. "The Fed is set on solving a murder and he thinks you can help him do that. I'd be lying if I said he wouldn't be back to bother you."

 _Why are you telling me this?_ Jim thought. _We're not friends, and I don't care._

"Mr. McCoy." 

They both heard the warning in the agent's sharp tone of voice.

But McCoy didn't step away from the door. Instead he leaned in slightly and said, "One more thing, Jim. I don't necessarily think he's wrong. I've been to that lake where you had your accident—it's the reason you're messed up, isn't it?" McCoy stared at Jim intently. "Because you lived when you weren't supposed to."

Jim's fingers dug into the doorframe.

The man went on to say, "If you want to help Spock figure that part out, fine. I don't give two shits about it. But there is something you might want from _me_ —and that's your voice."

Jim almost believed him. For a second, just a split second, he almost grabbed the man and shook him and said, _Yes, fix me!_

But it was all a lie.

McCoy stepped back. "Think about it," he said, then walked away.

Jim shut the door. After a moment, he dropped his forehead against it and made a pained noise in his throat. Something soft brushed against his hurting ankle. He looked down to see Jinx rubbing his head against his leg as if to comfort his owner.

Jim picked the cat up. "I'm sorry," he said, even if there wasn't a reason to apologize, and sat down on the edge of the couch to hold him.

* * *

  
Spock was as nosy as hell. The moment they got into the vehicle they had parked two blocks away, the agent wanted to know what he had said to Kirk.

Leonard cranked the car. "None of your business."

"You will tell me," Spock said, his posture stiffer than usual with displeasure.

That amused Leonard for some reason, enough so that he had to snort. "Haven't we been down this road before? Your threats don't work on me."

Spock grew quiet then.

Leonard quickly became disconcerted. He was further disconcerted when Spock asked in the politest voice he had heard yet, "Please, would you tell me what you said to James Kirk?"

Leonard had to resist the urge to fidget. "I told him I might be able to help him with his problem."

"Problem?"

"Disability," Leonard amended. "Although, that's a poor word choice. I don't think it's really a disability."

"You believe he is faking his condition?"

He shook his head. "No, I think he was silenced." When Spock didn't say anything to that revelation, Leonard tried to explain, "It makes sense. He can't talk, and the cause isn't physical. If it's true he has been mute since his accident—"

"Affirmative. It did begin at that time."

"—then magic has to be the culprit." Leonard glanced sidelong at the man in the passenger's seat. "You felt it, right? At Spirit Lake?"

"The presence of it was strong there," Spock agreed, voice soft.

"And nasty," added Leonard. "The way I see it: Kirk meets a Big Bad, survives the encounter but doesn't come away completely intact. It costs him something."

"His ability to speak and be understood. A curious theory, I will admit," Spock muses, "but the affliction could also be attributed to PTSD of a drowning victim, particularly a young one."

Leonard waited for the rest.

"Therefore if Kirk insisted he was accosted by the supernatural, his claim would have most likely been dismissed."

"Yep." Leonard could not help but point out a bit bitterly, "’Course, if the kid had said it was a magic user who had gone after him, then there would have been a witch hunt. I didn't read about that in any of the town newspapers."

"Do you understand now why I believe the perpetrator was not human?"

"I guess," Leonard said, pulling the car to a halt at a stoplight.

"You said you could help him, Mr. McCoy," the agent wanted to know, following a few seconds of silence. "What does that mean?"

"It means I have to try to undo what's been done to him."

"If it has no physical cause, you will not be able to heal him."

"I know that," Leonard almost snapped, not pleased to hear aloud the misgivings he already had. "But if I can find a way to reverse the spell, curse or whatever it is..." His knuckles turned bloodless around the steering wheel.

"Ah," Spock murmured.

Stupid Fed. "I'm doing this for my daughter," Leonard said in a tight voice. "I've run out of options, and she's running out of time." When Spock opened his mouth, he added, "And before you spout off about the dangers inherent in trying to untangle black magic, I've already made up my mind."

"I had no intention of mentioning the risk to you, Mr. McCoy, only that you could kill James Kirk in the process."

Leonard became indignant. "I should have known you would say that!" 

In revenge, he made the car jump forward by pressing his foot too hard on the gas pedal when the light changed to green. Spock threw his arms out and braced himself against the dashboard. 

When the car finally returned to a smoother ride, he told Leonard through gritted teeth, "That was very unnecessary."

"Oh, but it absolutely was," Leonard countered. "Otherwise I would've been too tempted to push your sorry ass out of the car."

" _Slow down._ "

"Bite me."

Spock cut his eyes at Leonard like he was considering it.

That, of course, was when Leonard noticed the blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror. "Oh fuck," he snarled. 

Spock twisted around to get a better view of the police car. "Slow down," he said again, this time more coolly. "And pull over. Do not exit the car. I will handle them."

Leonard wasn't going to argue. He had no desire to be identified and dragged to the downtown station for booking. After he pulled into an empty parking lot and cut off the engine, he slumped low in his seat, wishing to remain unseen.

Spock got out of the car, lifted his hands in the air to alert the policeman—or policemen, as there were two figures behind the windshield—he was not armed and started forward. Leonard watched the guy from the driver-side exit the cop car, realizing a second later it was a woman in uniform and not a man.

She looked more vicious than friendly. Spock didn't stand a chance.

Leonard grinned, thinking he might just enjoy this afternoon's show after all.

* * *

  
When it rained, it rained shit. Christopher Pike had learned that over the years as a county sheriff.

At the same time he received the report one of his deputies had run down McCoy and the elusive federal agent, _another_ federal agent showed up on the doorstep of his station. Pike had a split second to pick which problem to tackle first. He decided to go with the one staring him in the face, praying to a higher power that Uhura didn't do something stupid in the meantime.

Chris waved the Fed into his office with the question "What brings you to Iowa, Agent?"

The man held out one of his hands. "Never pleasure, sir. Hikaru Sulu," he introduced himself.

They shook hands.

"I was on assignment down in Mississippi. It turned a little strange when one of ours phoned me and made an off-book request." The man sat down in a chair by the desk and crossed his legs. "You could say I'm following up."

Pike nodded his understanding and silently cursed. What had that Spock-character done? He offered, "I will tell you upfront my contact with your agency has been limited in the past few years. Not much goes on in Iowa—at least, not in this county."

Sulu gave him a hint of smile without any humor in it. "I checked into that, Sheriff, so I would have to agree—which has me wondering just how well things stay hidden here."

Their eyes locked, and the stare lasted for a significant length of time.

Sulu broke the silence by saying, as he pulled a white business card from his pocket and slid it onto the polished top of Pike's desk, "If I have any questions during my investigation, I hope I can count on your cooperation."

 _I don't doubt you'll demand it._ "Of course, Agent Sulu. Do you need anything from me at the moment? Directions to a Holiday Inn, perhaps?"

"No." Sulu stood up and gave him a curt nod. "I am well-aware you are a busy man. Thank you for your time, Sheriff Pike. I can see myself out." The agent left Pike's office door standing open as he left.

Christopher crumpled the business card in one hand and chucked it into the waste bin under his desk.

 _Fucking hell!_ he snarled to himself. The mental backlash of his anger had several people in the office visibly flinching, even if they had no idea why they did so. 

There was less time than he thought. He had to do something about Kirk, and soon, before the whole of the government came down on them and destroyed them all.

* * *

  
When Hendorff had wanted to get out of the car, Nyota Uhura pinched his leg and told him to stay put.

"Geez, woman, I'm not a fucking dog!" he complained.

"Could've fooled me," she shot back, putting enough bite in her voice to warn him not to dismiss the order. He was a rookie compared to her, and in fieldwork the pecking order mattered most. Although, in her experience, male officers on the force, young and old, didn't like deferring to a woman. Hendorff was still in the learning phase.

Unsnapping the top flap of the holster carrying her gun, she pushed open the car door and got out. The man who came to meet her was tall and of some ethnicity other than white. 

And he was a Suit.

Nyota didn't draw her weapon, tempting as it was. She had no love of government agents; their tendency was to show up into the middle of an investigation, raze the local authority, and then proceed to fuck things to hell. They always left a mess behind.

And on general principle, they were as smug as hell too. She liked that least of all.

"My identification is in the left inner pocket of my coat," the agent told her, hands still raised. He didn't look particularly perturbed to have been pulled over.

Well, she could teach this man a thing or two.

"Sir, put your hands on the car and don't move."

The dark-haired man's brows furrowed.

Nyota laid her hand on the butt of her gun. "Do it."

He did, albeit reluctantly, without outright complaining about the body search. While he was braced against the car, Uhura stuck her hand his coat pocket and pulled out his badge. She also took his wallet and cell phone.

"May I stand up?" he asked her as she moved away. "I find this position to be uncomfortable."

"No," Nyota said. She started to walk around the vehicle to get a look at the driver. 

The agent—Spock, according to his badge—took his hands off the car. In the next second she had her gun in hand and trained on him. She saw Hendorff get out the car in her peripheral vision.

"What did I say?" she snapped. " _Hands on the car._ "

The man's expression was very calm, but the confusion in his eyes was clear. "I am not a threat, Officer."

"Hendorff," Nyota barked, "cuff this bastard!"

"Uh…" Hendorf started to say something but stopped himself and took out his handcuffs with an uncertain air. He stayed rooted to the ground.

As their eyes met, the agent's confusion quickly morphed into anger. "You are making a mistake."

"No mistake," said the woman. "You're in a vehicle that I caught breaking a traffic law, and now you refuse to follow orders. I'm within my rights, sir."

"And yet you will not entertain the idea that you could be hindering a federal investigation."

Sweat began to bead on Hendorff's forehead.

"Am I?" Nyota asked too sweetly. "Because I saw no flashing lights on your vehicle. I also see no government tags or markings that are _standard regulation_ for an agent on the job." She added on a hunch, "And you aren't the driver."

A flash of something in the agent's eyes, there and gone. She had him, and he knew it.

Nyota lowered her gun slightly. "Hendorff, put the cuffs on him." 

She was certain Hendorff was muttering an apology, the little chickenshit, as he locked one of the cuffs around the wrist of the unresisting agent.

Nyota turned back to the driver still sitting in the car, caught a reflection of hazel eyes and a tan face in the side-mirror. She started to order, "Step out of the vehicle" when the car engine roared to life. Its tires kicked up gravel and dirt as it jumped the curb and took off down the highway.

She had expected that reaction, because her sixth sense for the nefarious never failed her, and was already running back to her vehicle to give chase, more than willing to leave Hendorff and their catch behind. What she didn't expect was to be blindsided by the agent. 

Training took over when they collided, and she brought her knee into the man's solar plexus. To her surprise, when he went down to the ground with a grunt of pain, so did she.

The bastard had attached the other end of his handcuffs to her wrist.

" _Hendorff,_ " she screamed, " _go after him!_ "

But stupid Hendorff was face-down on the pavement and groaning. Precious seconds were wasted as she ordered him to get up.

"I believe," the man she had winded said when her yelling died down to crude curses, "you may want to take me to the station now."

Nyota had a very lucid vision of shooting this man in the head.

Dark eyes met hers.

"Alive," he added.

She hated the son of a bitch for being right and dragged them both to a standing position. Her partner clambered to his feet on his own, then tried to punch Spock for knocking him down. Nyota kicked Hendorff in the shin for his trouble.

"Get in the car," she said angrily, "and radio in."

Hendorff wisely did. Hauling Spock around the side of the cruiser, she was none-too-gentle when she shoved him into the backseat and read him his Miranda rights. At the end, the bastard merely raised his eyebrow.

Hendorff got off the radio. "APB is out. We'll get him, Uhura."

"We'd better," she said, still looking at Spock. For the past few weeks, she'd noticed that something smelled around the department and she wanted to know what it was that had her S.O. making furtive calls during work hours. That it had to do with this guy in her backseat, she was certain.

Nyota slid behind the wheel of the car. "Let's go," she said to Hendorff. 

He finally knew better than to protest.

* * *

  
"Shit," Leonard said to his reflection in the rearview mirror. "Shit, shit, _shit_."

Spock was a fucking idiot. They were both fucking idiots! 

Now he was literally on the run again. He had to ditch the car and find a place to hide for a while, or they'd run him down within the hour. Small towns were like that.

Mother _fuck_ , how was this is his life?

He left the car at a gas station and hiked two blocks to a bus stop. He took the bus to a random stop, then walked for a while before finding another bus that went in the opposite direction. Once he was back in the middle of downtown, he caught a taxi with some of the cash he had pilfered off of Spock and had the cabbie take him to a neighborhood park.

By the time he reached his intended destination, he was certain he had taken the most meandering route possible. It was near dark when he pressed down on a particular doorbell and put his forehead against the old painted wood. He felt exhausted and just a little too beyond nervous to care when the door finally, grudgingly eked open.

"Hey," Leonard greeted Jim Kirk, and pushed his way into the house.

He went straight to the couch and dropped onto it, at first wanting to lie down face-first but deciding it wasn't smart to be so oblivious to the guy whose house he had just busted into. He raked his fingers through his hair and pulled out a pack of cigarettes he had bought earlier in the day. He stuck one in his mouth but couldn't find his lighter.

 _Figures_ , he thought. With a movement more vicious than necessary, he tore the cigarette from his mouth and threw it on the coffee table. It rolled off to the floor.

Leonard looked up to find Kirk in faded cotton pajamas watching him with a blank expression.

"Spock got nabbed," he said. "I need somewhere to hide."

Jim lifted his hand in a vague gesture which probably meant _why the hell is this happening to me?_ , and Leonard took pity on him.

The paper pad and pen were still on the coffee table. Leonard retrieved the pen and wrote out, _Can I stay here? Please?_

Jim came forward to read the message. Then he took the pen and tapped it against his knuckles for a few seconds. Eventually he wrote back, _Tonight only._

"Thank fucking god. You're a life-saver," Leonard told him, relieved.

The twist to Kirk's mouth probably meant he found that statement ironic.

Leonard slumped back into the couch. "If I'm not gone by the time you're up in the mornin', you have my permission to put a boot in my face." He flicked a glance at the other man. "And, uh, I promise to not rob you or murder you in your sleep."

Jim scribbled down, _Every serial killer says that._

Leonard made a face.

_Go to bed, Bones. I'm not scared._

"Big words for a guy letting a stranger crash on his couch."

Jim set down the pen and stood up. Leonard couldn't get a good handle on Kirk's expression. It almost looked like... pity.

Why would Jim Kirk pity him?

Leonard had to look away. Jim left the room and came back with a musty-smelling blanket and a flat pillow. He dropped the items on the nearby chair and walked away again, switching off a hallway light as he went.

Somewhere in the house a clock ticked. Leonard let the silence settle around him before he retrieved the blanket and pillow and took off his shoes. The couch was much too lumpy to be comfortable but Leonard had slept on worse. He draped the blanket over his legs and stared at the ceiling, watching shadows and light dance together as cars occasionally passed through the neighborhood.

The temperature in the room dropped significantly at one point but Leonard whispered, "I swear I will do no harm," and the coldness evaporated. 

This was all so crazy. He didn't much care for sleeping alongside a ghost, but options seemed to be running out of his hands like sand. He honestly had no idea what he was supposed to do next.

It was with that thought circling in his head that he fell asleep.

* * *

  
As the sun waned and the darkness came, Jim paced the length of his bedroom. Putting a chair under the doorknob was stupid. Using _anything_ to block the door would be pointless.

He knew how to lock the man out, but how did he lock himself _in_?

The buzzing beneath his skin made him scratch relentlessly at his arms. Experiencing a swell of panic that refused to recede, he went to the many shelves he had added to his bedroom walls over the years and touched every image, toy, and model of a white horse that he owned. There were hundreds of them.

 _Don't come,_ he thought. _Please don't come._ He let out a low, unhappy sound. 

He didn't want to be a murderer. Bad people or not. Con men or not. 

But if he woke up in the morning to find dried blood on his hands...

Jim fisted those treacherous hands into his hair, felt the cold at his back, smelled wet animal hair. He bit down on his tongue until the coppery taste in his mouth was from his own blood. It stopped him from screaming in frustration. His legs folded, and he sat down on the floor.

He had no choice but to stop it, didn't he? Why else would he run the risk of letting someone else stay in his house?

Jim had to stop himself.

* * *

  
Leonard heard the lazy lapping of water and thought he was on a shore but because of the mist that stretched out in front of him could see nothing. He felt a cold, wet splash against his bare feet, droplets at first and then a spray, as if something was making its way towards him. It was a horse, he saw at last, come to loom over him, its long white head with its kelp-green eyes and great dark nostrils swooping down as though to bite.

Leonard had to touch it without knowing why. He had to pull himself up across the broad expanse of its back and cling with his legs to the round ribcage, thread his numb fingers through the coarse mane. The large beast gathered its muscles, turned and leaped so cleanly into the mist there was no sound. Leonard only knew they had landed in the water when he began to drown.

He could not free himself, even through the shock of the cold plunge. Instinct had him sealing his mouth; yet soon his lungs were on fire. He was going down, down and down, deeper than the shallows of a lake any right to be. Water weeds trailed past his face. He glimpsed a wicked eye, a widened nostril. The monstrous horse galloped effortlessly across the lake bed as if it was dry earth and the water was air. Leonard roiled and rocked, the long hairs of the mane tangling in his hands like sea grass.

The pain became so great, he willed himself to wake.

Leonard sat up, drenched and shivering, on the couch. He didn't move to stand up until he thought his legs would hold him. Even then, they shook as he half-walked, half-stumbled from the living room to the hallway in search of a bathroom. He found one with relative ease because the door was ajar.

Turning on the bathroom light presented him with a crime scene.

" _Jesus fucking Christ,_ " hissed Leonard, feeling his heart give a lurch in his chest. The bathroom was _decorated_ in blood.

A half-naked Jim Kirk lifted his head, fingers dripping red, and blinked owlishly against the bright overhead light. Then he absently mopped at his sweaty forehead, arms shaking, smearing blood across colorless skin.

Leonard did the only thing that came to mind: he went for the small penknife in Kirk's hand and tried to take it away. Startled, Kirk let him have it.

"What the _fuck?_ " Leonard said, dropping to his knees next to the man. "Are you insane!" He put his hands on Kirk to see where the damage had been done, because by sight alone it was hard to tell. The kid had blood up to his elbows.

The answer came back almost immediately: deep lacerations to the palms. Not the wrists. Not a main artery.

Even as Leonard shuddered with relief, he didn't know what to make of it. Who did this kind of thing without the intention of committing suicide? 

Looking into Kirk's round blue eyes, Leonard thought, _You do._

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, and dragged Kirk part of the way across his lap in order to pin him preemptively against resistance. He clamped his fingers viciously tight around Kirk's wrists, forcing the man to open his hands. It didn't matter about the blood going everywhere. By the time this was done, nothing they had on would be fit for rags.

As they both watched, the wounds in Jim's hands scabbed over.

"You stupid son of a bitch," Leonard reiterated in the fool's ear. 

Kirk stirred out of whatever mental haze he had gotten lost in. He uttered a word.

Leonard shoved the asshole off his lap. "You could have bled out!"

Kirk stared down at his hands. He drew in a breath and, for a second, appeared to be incredibly confused. Then he looked around at Leonard, and he was angry. He made a furious gesture at the wall behind them. When Leonard didn't oblige him by looking, Jim twisted at the waist and leaned forward to punch the wall.

His fist landed, Leonard saw, on one of the blood smears—except now it looked less like a chaotic smear from a lunatic and more like a drawing, the kind that made up the mural on the outer kitchen wall.

Leonard took in the other smears. He had no idea what the symbols meant. He turned back to Jim. "What're you? A witch-doctor?"

Jim gave him an ugly look and used the meager space he had between Leonard and the toilet to hoist himself to his feet. The man instantly blanched.

"Sit down," Leonard told him, and Jim sat down on the closed toilet lid, dropping his head.

"This is some fucked-up shit, kid. I'd ask why you're practicing voodoo on your bathroom walls but frankly I don't want to know. Next time just—" Leonard gestured awkwardly at Kirk's hands. "—be more careful. I'm pretty certain in another five minutes, you would have needed a blood transfusion. That's just plain stupid, especially coming from a guy like you who is smart enough to know better."

Jim lifted his head. He said something.

"Sorry, that's gibberish to me," Leonard reminded him, not feeling sympathetic at all. He rocked back on his heels and pushed to his feet. "But if you meant to ask who the fuck am I to lecture you, I'd say I'm not the one who just made his bathroom look like the scene of a murder." Leonard grimaced as he stepped out of a puddle of congealing blood. "Gross. Have fun cleaning. Be liberal with the bleach."

He wasn't surprised in the least when Jim followed him out of the bathroom. Leonard grabbed the waist of the man's pajama pants when Kirk veered dangerously towards a wall and set him back on course down the hallway. By the time Leonard had pulled and prodded the swaying kid to the living room, Jim was definitely on the verge of keeling over.

Leonard used the blanket to cover as much of the couch as he could and let Kirk fall onto it. Watching Kirk’s face slacken as the guy succumbed to unconsciousness, Leonard scrubbed at his forehead with a blood-free spot on his shirt sleeve.

 _What's going on here?_ he wondered.

More to the point, now that he was stuck in the middle of it, how was he going to get himself out again?

He had no clue.


	14. Part Thirteen

Leonard hadn't planned to spend his time playing housemaid in the home of a veritable stranger, but he also didn't want to piss or shower in a bathroom that looked like the inside of a slaughterhouse. Once he was marginally certain Kirk wasn't going to die from blood loss, he found a container of bleach stowed in the very back of the kitchen's sink cabinet along with a pair of old yellow rubber gloves. There was plenty of dust on both. The last time the house had been cleaned properly must have been when Winona Kirk was living.

He took his armful of cleaning supplies to the bathroom, griping as he went. "I really didn't sign up for this shit. Yet Spock keeps trying to convince me that I don't have a choice in the matter, and now there's Kirk—which, let me tell you, there's something majorly _wrong_ with your son."

Cold air washed over the back of Leonard's neck as he entered the bathroom.

Leonard knelt to set down the supplies and glanced behind him. "Was that you agreeing?"

The bleach tilted over onto its side.

Leonard put the container right side up again. "...Okay? That's not a yes or a no to me, but I'll take it as a sign you're at least paying attention. Lucky for you, I have some experience in communicating with the dead."

After donning the rubber gloves, he unscrewed the cap on the bleach so he could fill up a mop bucket he had found. As he worked, Leonard continued talking to Jim's mother.

"You must have been storing up energy. Mostly spirits burn themselves out pretty quick, even if they're driven by rage. It takes a lot to live, you know, so imagine trying to live when you're dead." He shook his head slightly. "Usually my advice to your kind is move on, but I'm thinking your kid must be the reason you won't." He paused but could think of no polite way to phrase his question. "Is it true that Jim killed you?"

The lights cut out, and the mirror above the sink frosted over.

Slowly releasing a breath, Leonard sat back. "If he really did do it, there's no point in trying to protect him, Ms. Winona."

The light bulbs above the mirror flickered momentarily.

"All right," Leonard conceded. "I get it. He's innocent." As the lights came back on one-by-one, he added in a dry tone, "Thanks, that's mighty kind of you, considerin' I'm the one scrubbing your bathroom floor." Leonard reached for the sponge again and passed it over a particularly stubborn blood stain. "Normally I try not to come between a man and his demons, but do you think he'll tell me why he did this? I get the feeling he's being ridden hard. Sometimes that kind of thing is due to a guilty conscience. It drives people off the deep-end. But sometimes it's literal possession, too."

Leonard stopped with an arm stuck in the bucket, struck by his own words. "If he's not guilty of murder, then maybe he _is_ possessed."

Winona didn't have an opinion on the matter, it seemed. Though Leonard waited a while longer before calling her, no response came. At some point while he had rattled on, she had disappeared.

Leonard finished cleaning up the bathroom in silence.

* * *

  
Jim woke up thinking he was still dreaming when he saw his mother lean down and brush a hand against his forehead. It was so vivid he felt her fingers moving the strands of his hair. But unlike the way he remembered this happening in the past, her touch held no warmth.

Jim woke up fully then, shielding his eyes against the noon sun, and found himself on the couch in his living room. He sat up to the realization that he was alone.

It didn't take him long to piece together his fragments of memory from last night. He looked down at his forearms, expecting to see the evidence of it, but the skin was clear of blood. Someone had taken care to clean him up while he slept.

He shivered and slid a blanket off his legs. The room moved a little of its own accord as he stood up but not enough to deter him from making his way to the bathroom.

It too had been cleaned, with a strong house-cleaner. The smell made Jim's stomach turn. 

After emptying his bladder and taking a moment to stare at his pale, stubbled skin, Jim went in search of the man whose acts of kindness left him unsettled. But it became quickly apparent to Jim that McCoy was no longer in the house. The man had kept his word and left.

In the kitchen, Jim discovered a note on the front of his refrigerator and groceries inside it which he had not bought himself. The note said in an unfamiliar scrawl, _Take better care of yourself in the future. Also, I would've fed your cat but it wouldn't come out from under the couch. - LM_

As Jim selected a bottle of Gatorade and a ready-made sandwich, he decided he didn't like the fact that a part of him wished Leonard had stayed after all.

* * *

  
It was really bad, Leonard told himself, that his thought process came down to 'ways to break Spock out of jail'. Worse yet, as antsy as he had been to get rid of Spock, it seemed he didn't know what to do with himself without the bastard. He could have stayed and questioned Kirk, of course, but there had been the matter of a promise to keep. And it wasn't like Jim had a whole list of reasons to trust him, and vice versa.

So here he was, wandering a quiet shopping area like he was lost while he re-assessed his options. For some reason, those options always circled back to the same irritating, arrogant federal agent.

" _Shit and damn_ ," muttered Leonard as he slipped into a bookstore and veered towards the row farthest from the entrance. When he reached its end, he let his fingers walk across some of the book spines, pretending to look like he was browsing in case a store camera was monitoring the area.

Would Spock be able to get out of the station himself? Probably.

But what happened if the cops called up Spock's agency to report the misbehavior of one of their own? Then there wasn't a chance in hell Leonard would meet up with Spock again. It also meant everybody and his brother would be looking for Leonard in order to detangle exactly what Spock had been up to in Riverside. Leonard didn't doubt they would catch him eventually if he stuck around.

But could he leave? That was what it all came down to: could he abandon the mission— _his_ mission—when there were more questions than answers? Could he start over?

Leonard made a snap decision and went back to the front of the store. He politely asked the young, dark-haired woman at the cash register if he could use her telephone. She handed him a cordless one, and he walked a few feet away from her, dialing a memorized number.

"It's me," Leonard said before the person who answered the call could cut him off. "Can you talk?"

"I thought you'd be dead by now."

Leonard took that to mean yes. "That's touching, Christine. I didn't know you cared."

"I'm fairly certain I made it plain that I don't." The woman's voice lowered a notch. "You shouldn't have called."

"I had a friend send you this phone precisely so I could contact you when I needed to."

"You should have had that friend give it to your father. He's _worried_ about you, Leonard, and although I hate to admit it, so am I."

It was a good thing she couldn't see his mouth twitching. "Aw, you do care."

"Oh, shut up. What do you need from me?"

Leonard hesitated, glancing surreptitiously at the cashier to see if she was eavesdropping. "How's Joanna?"

"Weaker some days; stronger, others. Clay says that she's holding her own."

Leonard had to force himself to ease his grip on the phone. "I guess he's doing what he said he would after all."

"And what was that?"

"That he would keep her alive until I get back."

"Len..." Christine's voice fell away for a moment. "Your dad told me what you're trying to do. Are you _sure?_ "

"No," he said to her honestly, if grimly. "It doesn't look good. Nothing..." He hesitated again. "Nothing has made any sense so far."

"Then come home."

"I wouldn't make it past the state line."

"You could try, couldn't you? Your daughter _misses_ you. And she's afraid. It's that much harder for her without you around."

He lifted a hand to his face to wipe at a stray tear. "I miss her, too, Chris, but you have to understand... I can't just give up and watch her die. _I can't._ If there's even the slimmest chance that something could fix this—"

"Stop—just stop. I'm not asking you to convince me. You're an adult and a father, and the decision is yours." Christine sighed long and low. "But I will tell you this, Leonard McCoy: if you stay away much longer, you won't be coming back to help her—you'll come back to bury her."

He couldn't say anything to that. The same worry preyed on his mind day and night already. He truly did not know if each decision he had made up until now has been the right one, that they would ultimately allow him to save his child. 

But he did know that there was one last thing he had to do before he left Riverside. Talking to Christine had shown him that.

"Thank you," he told her. "For your help... for everything, Christine."

"Leonard?"

He shifted on his feet. "About that favor I need. You got something to write with?"

"Just a second... Okay, I have a pen."

He recited a phone number.

"Do I want to know who this belongs to?"

"Just tell him you're a friend of mine and that I need him in Riverside, Iowa as soon as he can come. Here's the address." Leonard paused after giving her that information and made a face. "He'll ask for a code."

"You and your weird-ass friends..." Christine muttered. "What's the code?"

" _Keenser is not an alien._ "

"What is—you know what? Never mind. I'm hanging up now."

"Thanks, Christine."

"You're not welcome, you asshole," she replied, and the line went dead.

Leonard handed the cordless phone back to the woman behind the counter. She shifted in such a way that he took a quick second to scrutinize her, noting that she was older than his initial impression, although probably not into her thirties yet. "I appreciate you letting me use your phone, ma'am. Sorry it took so long."

"No problem, sugar," she said, and smiled. There was blatant interest in her smile and in the pointed way she reached out to casually flick an imaginary speck of dust off his shoulder. "Is there anything I can help you find?"

Six months ago Leonard might have returned the interest or even initiated an invitation of his own. Now he had too many problems crowding his mind to give a thought to flirtation or something more. 

He was just about to decline her help when an idea struck him. "Ghosts," he said. "Where's your section on ghosts?"

Her hand dropped to the counter, her long nails clicking against the surface. "Hm.... Ghosts?" Her smile turned to a drier expression. "Sure." She came around the counter and started toward a different part of the store, calling over her shoulder, "We've got a vampire section too."

"Thanks, but no," Leonard replied. He murmured to himself, "One problem at a time" before following her.

* * *

  
"Are we feeling more cooperative this morning?" Christopher Pike asked the man sitting quietly inside the interrogation room. As he approached the table, he took in the agent's rumpled clothes and purposefully neutral expression, deciding the answer was likely a _no._

He sat down and slid a paper cup across the table. "Coffee?"

"It would be appreciated, yes," replied Spock, who then lifted his hands, "but perhaps enjoyed better if my handcuffs were removed."

"I can't negotiate on standard procedure, Agent."

Spock lowered his hands and clasped them sedately in front of him. He didn't touch the coffee.

Chris took a manila folder out from under his arm and dropped it onto the table. "I don't feel particularly inclined go over what we discussed yesterday, so let's just skip the hunt and tree the prey. Who was the man with you in the car?"

"The driver."

 _And here we go again,_ Chris thought to himself, mildly irritated. "Please try to be less of a smart-ass, Agent Spock. What is his name?"

"I cannot give you that information."

"Why not?"

"It is a matter of privacy. As I informed you yesterday evening, your officers disrupted me in the middle of an investigation. There is certain information pertaining to it which I cannot disclose—including information surrounding the involvement of other individuals. I will not jeopardize my work."

Chris wasn't fooled. "I think it's a fact by now that you refuse to disclose _any_ information."

Spock tilted his head slightly as if to consider this remark, before conceding the point with a nod.

The sheriff resisted the urge to make his irritation known, and instead reached out with a tendril of his ability to brush against the man's mind; but, as had happened to him the day prior, he could not breach it. Whoever had schooled the agent in the mental arts had been very knowledgeable. There were no tiny crevices, chinks, or penetrable areas through which Chris could glean the turning of the other man's thoughts. He found himself stuck on one side of a smooth, unforgiving wall.

He was both impressed and disturbed by the skill it took to maintain it. He also had to wonder if Agent Spock had innate magic of his own, because Chris had never encountered a mental block that was so perfect, yet seemed so perfectly _ordinary_ at the same time.

He flipped open the folder and pretended to peruse the topmost report inside. "Tell me about your mother. You never knew her, correct? She died in childbirth."

For the briefest of moments it felt like the table quaked under his hand.

"How is that question relevant, Sheriff?"

 _Not so aloof now, are you?_

Chris closed the file and folded his hands on top of it. "I am attempting to discern your motive, Agent. Your father was your only living parent. Is it revenge for his death which brings you here? Which prompts you to keep your business a secret from local law enforcement? I have to wonder... who really _knows_ why you're in Riverside?"

"Whether or not I share my business with you is determined by my superiors."

"You've said that before. Maybe I'm in the mood to contest your statement," Chris responded, tone mild. "Should we contact one of your superiors and ask him?"

Their eyes stayed locked.

"That is your prerogative, sir."

Chris smiled. "Excellent." He turned toward the one-way mirror at his back. "Would you like to join us now, Mr. Sulu?"

For the first time since Uhura and Hendorff had escorted him into the station, Spock's facade cracked.

* * *

  
Scowling, Leonard shoved the third book he'd come across back onto its shelf with none-too-gentle care. As far as research went, these authors and so-called 'paranormal investigators' knew next to nothing about the realm of the dead. Leonard had had more experience just by making friends with the ghost-dog who had haunted his next-door neighbor's house in Georgia.

 _These people are stupid,_ he thought to himself. 

It was a damn good thing he had called in reinforcements. He doubted there was anyone knowledgeable enough in town (let alone worth trusting) to help him deal with the supernatural mess he had found himself in.

Thinking about that mess brought him back to the previous night's events. 

He closed his eyes and saw them: the horses.

It had been an invasion of privacy, Leonard had known that. But after scrubbing down the bathroom and then himself, he had needed a towel to clean up. Finding the bathroom cabinets empty, he had had to look elsewhere.

Prowling through another man's private territory, even without the intention to snoop, was never an honest thing to do. It hadn't helped, of course, that the moment he stepped into Jim's bedroom, he had been simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by what he saw.

Horses, white ones, everywhere: figurines, posters, paintings, carvings, stuffed toys.

He understood then why Kirk had been carrying around that small horse earlier in the day. The man collected them.

But why had Leonard also felt sick and unsettled? His gut had flopped unhappily like he had consumed too much greasy food at once, and so after a cursory glance around the floor of Kirk's room, Leonard had backed out of the doorway. Only then had his nerves eased toward normal. The feeling went away entirely once he had closed the bedroom door.

Being a collector was a common enough hobby, and it shouldn't have affected him at all. It wasn't until Leonard had finished unloading the groceries from the neighborhood convenience store into Kirk's refrigerator that he recalled his dream of taking a wild ride on the back of a white horse. How odd. He had dreamt of it carrying him into a lake. The horse had certainly been intent on drowning him.

But Leonard shrugged it off. His dreams rarely made sense, often connecting random images and events into one fantastical, often implausible imagining. He didn't always remember them upon awakening, and if he did, the details of them faded quickly.

Yet, after last night's dream, he thought he could still taste the lake water in his mouth and feel the coarse mane in his hands. It was a curious thing, the mind.

It was a more curious thing, those horses of Kirk's.

Leonard skimmed his fingertips over several book spines before settling on one. He knew too well about the spirits he had encountered over the years but, beyond experience, nothing much. Contrary to belief, accurate knowledge about the supernatural was difficult to find. The government censored a lot of what hit the bookstores, fiction and non-fiction, out of a misguided sense of the old adage _what they don't know can't hurt them_. Luckily, Leonard had a source who knew plenty about the subject and was willing to share that knowledge too.

But Scotty wouldn't arrive for another day or so.

"Did you find everything you were lookin' for?" 

Leonard paused in opening the book in his hand, looking up with a startled "Ma'am?"

The cashier stood at the end of the row, watching him. He hadn't noticed her at all until she spoke. That alone made him wary.

"Sure," he told her. "Thanks for your help."

But she didn't take the hint, instead closing the distance between them a little. With a brief smile, she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket then a lighter. "Want a smoke?"

He did. Oh, he did. But his mama had raised him not to take candy from strangers. "I'm tryin' to quit."

"Ah." She stuck an unlit cigarette between her lips and started to turn away, but abruptly turned back to Leonard a few seconds later, saying out-of-the-blue, "I've got a place if you need one."

What?

She lifted her right arm and drew down the sleeve to reveal smooth, unblemished caramel skin.

Leonard's hand automatically went to his own wrist which bore the Mark. He had made a point of keeping it hidden.

"I can usually tell," the woman said, almost in an offhand manner. "It's... a family thing."

Whether she was admitting to having a bit of magic of her own or hinting that she was related to Marked individuals, Leonard did not know. But either of those was a dangerous thing to do.

"I'm fine," he said pointedly. "But if that offer was genuine, I do appreciate it. Not a lot of people are comfortable talking to a man like me, let alone taking an interest in my welfare."

"No problem, sugar," she said as she had earlier and left him alone.

* * *

  
"Hello, Agent Spock."

"Agent Sulu," Spock greeted, having regained his composure and returned to looking unnaturally calm.

Sulu, hands in his trouser pockets, glanced at the third man in the room and suggested, "Why don't you give us a moment, Sheriff?"

Pike raised his eyebrows. "Now why would I do that?"

"Because you want him to talk, but at the same time I'm sure you have noticed you don't have the right incentive for that." Sulu's mouth stretched into a thin smile. "I do."

Pike observed Sulu momentarily before standing and saying, "Then I'll just grab a fresh cup of coffee." He didn't look at Spock. "Five minutes?"

"That will suffice," the agent agreed.

The door closed in the sheriff's wake. Sulu withdrew a hand from his pocket and attached a small object to the underside of the table as he brushed past it to take Pike's vacated chair. 

Spock kept his eyes fixed forward. After a slow count to ten, he then met Sulu's gaze. "I will admit that I did not expect to see you here, Agent."

"After that call you made, you should have," Sulu retorted. His gaze skipped pointedly towards the camera in the corner of the room. "I estimate we have three minutes before they figure out their feed is on a loop."

"Two minutes," Spock corrected. "Pike may not be in our databases but he is still a talented mind-reader. I assume you projected the appropriate intentions to gain his trust."

"I made them a bit bloody too. He seems to appreciate that theme."

"Good. While I believe he has personal motive not to contact Headquarters, that belief is no guarantee. We must proceed with caution."

"I figured that out, sir, the first time you contacted me. They're going to have your head, you know, when this is over."

"I am too valuable of an asset for them to take my head," Spock stated. "But more to the point, the repercussions for my actions should not concern you."

"They don't," Sulu replied. "I'm here because I owe a debt to your father. You know that, just as you also know I am loyal to the job. So let's compromise before I do agree to something potentially career-damaging."

The handcuffs clinked as Spock steepled his fingers. "Name your terms."

"Iowa's undiscovered country in our books... and it has a lot of potential. I want back in the field permanently—and I want this jurisdiction."

"You seem to be under the impression I can acquire that for you."

"I know you can, _sir_ ," Sulu tacked on with faux politeness. "Why else would I be on this assignment in the first place?"

Spock acknowledged the truth of that statement by inclining his head. "What else?"

"McCoy. I want McCoy."

For a few seconds, Spock said nothing. His silence spoke for itself.

The look in the other agent's eyes sharpened. 

Perhaps sensing Sulu's interest, Spock asked with guarded care, "Why?"

"Why not?" countered Sulu. "He's a criminal, and I could use the commendation."

"Which would lend credence to my request to station you in this area," Spock surmised. "I see. I assume Iowa is simply a stepping stone to the rest of the Midwest."

"Lead Regional Agent... maybe even a Director," remarked Sulu. "The latter has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He continued to watch Spock closely. "So, is giving up McCoy going to be a problem?"

"Not a particularly difficult one, no," replied the other man. "However, you will have to catch him first."

"I doubt that will be hard, as long as you do not get in my way. Because if you do, Spock..." Sulu leaned forward, sliding a hand across the surface of the table just as they heard the thump of someone trying to force the jammed lock of the door. "Family friend or not, I will put you six-feet under."

Spock gave no indication of how he felt about the threat. He only said, "Understood."

Sulu lifted up his hand, revealing a small silver key which gleamed in the overhead lighting. Spock took the key to his handcuffs and stowed it away. They both sat back and blinked at each other as the door fell open and a deputy stumbled inside. Sheriff Pike impatiently pushed the young man out of his way as he came into the room next, projecting just how pissed he was.

Spock looked at the angry man and said simply, "Kirk."

Pike drew up short. His nostrils flared. Then he twisted at the waist and barked to the others behind him, " _Get out._ "

They did, as if obeying a direct order from Pike was ingrained so deeply in their makeup they could do nothing else. Such was the potency of the man's magic.

Spock withdrew the key from the inside of his shirt sleeve and wordlessly proceeded to unlock his handcuffs.

"Do you have your equipment?" Sulu asked Spock.

"Some of it."

"Is the feed still scrambled?" Pike interrupted suddenly, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

Sulu gave him an even stare. "Until I decide otherwise."

The sheriff came forward, then, demanding of Spock, "Talk. What do you know about Kirk?"

"What don't we know?" Sulu said before the other agent could answer. "The question is, why is he important to you?"

Pike ignored Sulu. "You will tell me. And I'll know if you're lying."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "It's impolite to read my mind, Sheriff."

Pike's expression didn't change. "Why are you here?"

Spock looked to Sulu, then back to Pike. "I suggest you cooperate with us now. If you do not, you will not have a chance to do so later on. Our only prerogative in Riverside at this time is to catch a killer."

"If you think that killer is James Kirk, then you're wrong."

"Prior to this conversation I had assumed he was not."

"Sounds like we might need to change our minds, sir," Sulu remarked in a mild tone to the other agent.

Pike dragged a hand through his hair, saying, "Shit. All right, boys, we'll start from square one. I'm Sheriff Christopher Pike. If you want to hunt in this county, whether officially or unofficially, you come to me. That's the rule, and there are no exceptions or excuses. Now tell me who you're hunting. I can guess the why," he added, looking at Spock.

"The 'who' remains unclear to me. It is the details of Mr. Kirk's accident, however, which I believe will reveal the identity." 

"Then you're in luck, Mr. Spock," Christopher Pike said, "because I was there."

* * *

  
Leonard lingered in the bookstore longer than he should have. By the time he was motivated enough to leave (a growling stomach was plenty motivation, it seemed), his admirer had lost interest in him and was busy creating an arrangement of what looked like a shipment of new romance novels at the front of the store.

Leonard inclined his head towards the woman as he pushed through the front door, despite that she wasn't looking his way. He managed to make it two feet along the sidewalk before he saw a cop car round the street corner. On instinct, Leonard ducked back into the bookstore.

This time the employee turned her head around at his hasty reappearance. 

"Bathroom?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

"In the back," she said.

Leonard retreated to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and regain his bearings. It was a silly reaction, honestly, his panic. What did he have to panic about when the police patrolled their territory all the time? It was acting suspiciously as he was doing now that was likely to get him noticed.

He exited the bathroom, intent on acting less like a fool this time around.

It was shock that brought him up short when he stepped away from the bookshelves to the front of the store. Panic overrode sense, and with good reason.

In his absence, a police officer from the car had entered the bookstore. At Leonard's sudden appearance, the officer paused mid-conversation to turn and peruse him. 

Leonard blinked stupidly and, a moment later, forced his legs toward the counter. His stiff fingers picked out a book from the display along the side, fumbling it only slightly as his heart thundered in his chest.

It was _her_ , the policewoman who had taken Spock into custody.

How in the hell had she found him? Had Spock ratted him out? 

He sucked in a breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Except, it didn't.

The women went back to their conversation, which was a jumble of meaningless words to Leonard's ears, and then the cop left. Leonard didn't realize why until the employee who had offered him the cigarette came into view and asked, "Are you going to buy that?"

Leonard looked up at her.

His face must have had a measure of fear in it, because her expression changed from politely bored to deeply curious.

"That place you mentioned," Leonard began without thinking, "is it still available?"

Her gaze narrowed somewhat but she said, "It is."

Leonard knew he had to get off the streets, at least until tomorrow. "Then, yeah, I guess I could use a place to stay."

Her red lips curved into the same smile she had offered him earlier. "Okay. If you can wait until I'm off shift, I'll take you there." Reaching across the counter, she took the crushed book from between his hands and replaced it on the display. 

Leonard didn't know what to do with his hands afterwards so he shoved them into his jacket pockets. A person, not a cop this time, entered the store with a child in tow. 

"Take a seat, sugar," Leonard was advised. "It'll be another hour. I'm Penda, by the way." 

"Leonard."

Penda nodded and left him to assist the customer, who clearly had a question for her.

Leonard chose a chair in a semi-circle of them around a coffee table and sank down into it. He spent the next sixty minutes wondering if he should be worried that Penda seemed too pleased to have his company.

* * *

  
They picked up Chinese takeout on the way to Penda's apartment. Leonard paid.

She told him he had a choice of her bed or the couch. The bed, she made a point of saying, came with perks that the couch didn't.

"While I'm flattered," Leonard said, "I think I would rather stick to your couch."

"I knew you would say that." With an amused laugh, Penda picked up a carton of food and a pair of chopsticks and dropped down to the floor by the coffee table. After stirring up her meal with the chopsticks, she wanted to know, "So what is it that you can do?"

He had known this part was coming too. Curiosity always got the better of people, even those who offered their help. He smiled thinly down at his food. "Not much, really. Shoot fireballs out of my ass?"

Her bark of laughter was genuine. "I hope you're lying, Leonard. That would have to be an _uncomfortable_ gift."

He hated that word 'gift'. "Is it important?"

"Could you hurt me?" She didn't sound like it much mattered if he said he could.

"Any man off the street could hurt you," he replied, "whether he's Marked or not."

"Oh, I doubt that." Penda took a delicate bite of a piece of chicken.

Leonard said nothing and concentrated on eating. He made up his mind to leave before dawn. There was something unusual about Penda. He couldn't say it was a bad thing, but he already had plenty to deal without adding more to the mix. Once he'd had his fill of his lo mein, he put down the container and asked her, "Why are you doing this?"

"Why did you want to come here?" When he didn't answer that, Penda tapped her chopsticks against her mouth. "It was the cop, wasn't it? You looked guilty as soon as you saw her. Lucky for you, she didn't notice. She can be like a dog with a bone once she's caught a scent like yours."

The food turned to lead in Leonard's stomach. "You know her?"

"Sure. She's my cousin."

Had he just walked into a trap? _Fuck._

He started to get up.

"I wouldn't leave if I were you," Penda told him. "Because I will call her and say you were here."

"I haven't done anything to warrant her or anybody else's attention. Why should I care what you say?"

"Mm." Penda made a thoughtful noise. "She hates it when I have men over." She put aside her food and rose from the floor in one graceful move. "But you're right... what can she do? It's not like _I_ need protection from _them_."

Hadn't her eyes been dark before, or were they always that golden hue of amber?

Leonard didn't dare move. He knew a predator when he saw one. He said, tone steadier than he felt, "I told you I'm not interested."

"In what?" the woman asked too sweetly. "The bed? Dinner?"

"The part where me in the bed ends up being dinner."

Penda stilled just briefly before bursting out with laughter. "Leonard, you are so funny! I'd say delicious, too, but I think you've changed my mind."

"Does that mean I can go?"

She shrugged, turning away to collect what was left of their forgotten meal. "The couch is still free. I promise I won't touch you."

"No offense, lady, but I'd rather not take my chances."

He was of the opinion that if it came down to it, he would rather go up against her cousin instead of whatever she happened to be.

Unless, of course, her cousin was of the same ilk.

"My magic," he said, abrupt enough to regain her interest. "It's for fixing people."

The lovely woman tilted her head in consideration of that. "Does that mean you're looking for someone who's broken?"

"No. I just want to be left alone."

Penda stared at him. "What's the point in wanting that, sugar? It won't ever come true."

He knew she was right. Leonard turned for the door.

To his surprise, she let him go. Exiting her apartment building and backtracking to a nearby motel he had been careful to take note of earlier on, he wondered what other secrets the seemingly mundane Riverside had been hiding from him.

* * *

  
Having spent the last of the money he carried on a room the night before, Leonard truly hoped his luck was about to change. It had started to rain lightly sometime in the early morning, and so everything felt damp, from the bus seats to his hair beneath the baseball cap he had lifted from the motel office along with a cup of coffee. He prayed all the way to his destination.

And he wasn't disappointed.

The van parked by the street curb stood out like a sore thumb. Leonard was infinitely glad to see it. He slapped a hand against the cold metal in greeting as he circled around to the back.

The man who slid open the door, blinking against the daylight, said, "You owe me big, you crazy bastard."

Leonard climbed inside. "Good to see you too, Scotty. Long drive?"

Scotty adjusted the dark-gray beanie on his head and snuffled. "Eh," he shrugged, "not really. I was a state over anyway." With his foot, he shoved a wooden crate at his guest.

Leonard sat down, then uncharacteristically leaned forward to give the man a one-armed hug.

Scotty pushed Leonard back with a half-hearted complaint, the skin of his neck flushing red. "Stop that. Just how desperate are you?"

"One state away? You were watching out for me," Leonard said.

"Yeah right!"

"Thanks," Leonard insisted anyway. "It's good to know I've got someone who gives a damn."

Scotty hunkered into his oversized parka. "You could've just called me yourself."

"Nah. I knew you'd like it better if a pretty lady made the request."

"I can't tell if a caller's pretty over the phone, dumbass."

Leonard chuckled. "You sayin' you don't have an idea of what Christine Chapel looks like?"

Scotty wisely said nothing else. He twisted sideways on his short stool and activated a computer screen, switching subjects abruptly. "I staked out here a little before midnight. There's something I want you to see."

Leonard dragged the crate closer to Scotty and the laptop, shooting a cursory glance at the equipment attached to it. "Is all of this really necessary?"

"You called me out for this job, didn't you?" Scotty opened a video file and began to fast-forward through hours worth of footage.

Leonard leaned in to get a good look at the scenery. "You monitored Jim's house?"

"Jim? Ah. James Tiberius Kirk," Scotty supplied. "Deceased mother, unknown father, a hell of a middle name. His grandfather's, I think. He's got some kind of speech impairment but isn't on disability. He works—well, when he can keep a job and himself out of the local jail."

Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose. He imagined Scotty gleefully researching all of those facts. "Is that it?"

"That was the long version, my friend, which means public records only tell half the picture. What don't I know?"

"He's crazy—and I think he's possessed."

Scotty didn't look as surprised as Leonard expected. Instead he said, "Let's hope that's the reason for this," and hit a button on his keyboard. 

The video displayed a black-and-white scene of Kirk's house. It was clearly late at night. Nothing moved on the street or in the yard. The video had no sound.

"I arrived at a good time," Scotty began, talking in a quieter tone as the clip continued to play. "An hour later and I would have set up too late to catch it."

"It?"

"This," clarified the other man, pointing with his index finger to a small flicker on the screen.

Only it wasn't a flicker of the transmitting image but a small white light flashing by a window inside the house. The kitchen, Leonard realized, piecing together what he knew of the house's layout.

"Could be the mother," Leonard murmured. "I met her while I was there."

"Keep watching," urged Scotty.

Leonard did. A minute later, the back door to the house opened. Since Scotty was parked parallel to the house to capture a three-sided view, Leonard didn't have a clear line of sight to see the person's face.

It wouldn't have mattered: there was no face. 

"What the hell is it? Kirk?" he said.

"I don't know." Scotty grimaced. "I wasn't watching the feed right then, otherwise I would have gone out and gotten a better look myself."

"You shouldn't have wanted to do that anyway, you fool." He considered the image as Scotty paused the video and enlarged the frame. "Well, we know it's on two legs at least. Thing is, if that is Kirk out for a midnight ramble, he sure as hell doesn't glow like that in the daytime. Do you have him coming back?"

"Unless he turned into a bat and flew down the chimney, no."

"So he didn't come home." Leonard sat back. "Fuck, why does that make me uneasy?"

"'Cause it's weird," Scotty said. "Weirder than either of us are used to."

Leonard blew out a breath and considered what he wanted to tell his friend. "Speaking of weird, can a horse drown somebody?"

Scotty's hands stilled in the process of fiddling with the video's settings. "What?" he asked, looking to Leonard.

"You're more into that mythology stuff than I am. A horse. A white horse? I spent a night in Kirk's house, and I had a strange dream. I thought it was just my brain mixing up stuff, with investigating these drownings and all—"

"Whoa there." Scotty held up a hand for Leonard to stop talking. "You said a horse and drowning. That's a kelpie. But no way could you have one of those _here_."

"Why not?

"They aren't native to this side of the ocean, Leonard." Scotty turned back to his laptop with a frown. "Well, not unless..."

"Unless what?" Leonard prompted.

"Unless somebody did a stupid thing, like uprooting one and bringing it over."

Leonard felt the knot of dread forming in his stomach. "By 'somebody' you mean a mage."

"It'd have to be. No ordinary man could control a spirit that powerful." Scotty rubbed at his knuckles and drew in a breath. "I dinnae like this." His accent slipped only when he was nervous. "You said something about drownings? How many? When?"

"Every seven years, give or take. That's the pattern I followed along the Mississippi. Kirk is the dead end, though. He was nearly a victim."

"Of a kelpie," Scotty said flatly. "I don't believe it." He didn't sound like he did either.

Leonard didn't know what to say.

Scotty jumped off his stool without warning and grabbed a ragged-looking backpack. "Okay, suppose a waterhorse _is_ the culprit. Then we'd have a bigger problem."

"Is it hard to kill?"

The man scoffed. "Ye can't kill a kelpie." He lifted a small book into the air for Leonard to see, then opened and browsed through it. "Besides, you said he's the dead end. Does that mean there haven't been more drownings?"

"I have no idea," Leonard replied. "The last time I know of was in 1997. But with a century's worth of activity... At least, that's as far back as—" _Spock tracked the thing_. Leonard couldn't say that. "—as the records go." He said more to himself, "So why would it stop killing all of a sudden when no one has ever caught it?"

Scotty ran a finger across a page of the book and murmured softly, "That fits."

"What fits?"

Scotty's face was pinched. "It's got to feed, lad. Every seven years like clockwork." He closed the book abruptly. "You know what bothers me, though? A hundred years is nothing to a supernatural. But for a human, that's a lifetime."

Leonard nodded. "So potentially the mage could be dead. Who would be controlling the spirit, then?"

At the same time they looked to the laptop screen, paused upon the white, shapeless figure leaving the house.

"Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we're really, really wrong on all of this, Scotty," Leonard said.

"I hope so," agreed his friend. "Otherwise that Kirk—Jim, whatever—fellow wouldn't be possessed by a kelpie. He'd be the manifestation of it."

Leonard hated, absolutely hated that his gut said _Congratulations, you figured it out._


	15. Part Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle in.

Chris had been wrong, of course. Matt was an excellent hunter. He wasn't just haphazardly running after things in the night. He had a sense for what he was hunting. It called to him. It drew him near just to taunt him. Because of that arrogance, he always felt that one day it would make a mistake and he would catch it.

Yes, Christopher Pike had been so, so wrong—and Matt planned to prove it to him.

He lowered his rifle and kicked at the lump on the ground. It didn't move. Couldn't. He'd stunned it with his heaviest tranquilizer.

Squatting down, he rolled the dead weight onto its back and pondered its features. It almost looked human; innocent even—like some grungy kid that had taken a tumble through dirt and leaves down a hillside.

But Matt wasn't fooled in the least. He knew a monster when he saw one. He knew _this_ monster, despite the pale skin it was wearing.

The bearded man pushed back his cap, grabbed one of the bare feet and began the arduous task of dragging his prize through the woodland, feeling good for the first time in years. 

He couldn't wait to show them all!

* * *

  
"What's the plan?"

Leonard raked a hand through his hair. "Do I look like I know what I'm doing?"

Scotty narrowed his eyes in consideration of his friend. "Not really, but I just got here so you can't expect _me_ to have the plan."

Early morning had given way to a noon sun. Looking towards the Kirk house, Leonard felt uneasy. "He's not back yet."

"Aye," murmured the other man. "So where does a were-kelpie hide in the daylight?"

"We're not calling it a were-kelpie, Scotty."

Scotty grinned. "Why not? We could've made a great discovery here—as important as Bigfoot! And since I saw it first, I get to name it," he added gleefully.

Leonard reached out and flicked his friend on the forehead. "Bigfoot isn't real, you dumbass."

Scotty rubbed his forehead. "Ow—hey, don't diss the Bigfoot legend. He was spotted recently, you know."

"Yeah, in Florida," Leonard retorted. "Unless he was vacationing, I know a hoax when I hear one."

Scotty pressed his mouth flat but it did nothing to hide his smile. 

With an exasperated sigh, Leonard drew a small leather-bound journal from an inner pocket. He'd kept it on him since he had recovered it from Spock. Maybe Scotty could do something with it. He said as much, handing it over to the man.

"Horatio McCoy?" Scotty read from the faded scrawl on the inner flap. "Is that your granddad?"

"Great-grandfather." He swallowed and considered how he wanted to explain everything.

But Scotty surprised him, looking up with an almost gentle understanding in his eyes. "I didn't ask 'cause it's none of my business. You don't have to tell me now."

"But I should. It won't help either of us if you're hamstringed by what you don't know." He took a short breath and went on to say, "My family might be cursed. It's, well, it's killing Jo."

Scotty's expression tightened for a short moment. "Are you sure?"

"No." He looked down at his hands, remembering how useless they've been. "I don't have any better ideas though."

"Sarek was tracking the curse-maker," Scotty surmised. The man bent his head as if to keep from making eye-contact with Leonard and riffled through a few of the loose pages in the journal.

"Yeah, he was—and it could've been the curse that killed him." _Which is partly why his son isn't willing to forgive me._ He didn't mention that part. Leonard reached over and guided Scotty to the page of the journal where his great-grandfather mentioned the curse. He stayed silent while Scotty read it through. Only when his friend was done did he ask, "What do you think?"

"There's no name."

"No," Leonard agreed. "I've read the journal several times but he never identified her by name. Maybe he was afraid to write it down since it was his father who was at fault. I don't think the rest of the family knew about the affair. Around a year later, there's a part where he mentions one of his mother's friends leaving town and how much he hoped she never came back. At first I thought it might be connected, that she was the mistress, but I couldn't find anything on her even when I checked the records in Georgia." He rubbed at one of his eyebrows. "My dad says that my grandfather only ever heard my great-grandfather talk about it once, after my grandmother died. All he said was 'It's her curse that killed your woman, same as mine.'"

Scotty closed the journal. "They say there's nothing more frightening than a woman scorned. Is it all right if I hold on to this?"

Leonard nodded, fighting off an abrupt feeling of despondency. To their right, Scotty's laptop screen flickered. Needing the distraction, he transferred his gaze there. They had given up on trying to identify specifics of the human shape cloaked in white. 

When the screen flickered again, Scotty rolled his eyes, said, "Cut it out."

It took Leonard a second to catch on. "Oh no... Don't tell me you brought him."

A music application popped up and started to play AC/DC's "Back in Black". 

With a curse, Scotty shut his laptop. "You make it sound like I had a choice in the matter. Damned bugger does what he wants."

Leonard was so glad he wasn't friends with a poltergeist. "I thought your van was warded."

"He started trashing the house when I wouldn't let him ride along on a case. I was okay with that, since I'm not much of a housekeeper anyway, until he set fire to my living room."

"Fuck."

"My sentiment exactly. It was kinda hard to explain to the Fire Department that a spirit did it on purpose because he was feeling pissy and left out."

A discarded glove from the floorboard flew up and smacked Scotty on the side of the head. 

Choking on a laugh, Leonard murmured, "Bad Keenser." Then, "I think it's time I left." Already another object started to rattle ominously upon the floor.

"Wait," Scotty stalled him, "what do you want me to do?"

"Keep watch," replied Leonard. "But, uh, move this van somewhere else for a while. The neighbors are gonna call the cops on you if you don't."

"I have a legal right to be here."

"Not if you're driving a child molester van."

"Oy!" Scotty cried, "Zelda is no such thing!"

Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose and swung open the back door of the van—Zelda, that is—without another word. A hand latched onto his arm.

"Here," Scotty said, producing an old-style flip phone. "We need to keep in contact."

Leonard took it with a heartfelt "Thanks." He pocketed the cell phone.

"Be careful. Watch out for Feds," his friend warned him.

"You too, Scotty. I'll be in touch soon."

With a nod, Scotty let him go.

* * *

  
After a short and tense discussion with Sheriff Pike, Spock was summarily released into Sulu's custody. Spock had stayed silent while they had collected the agent's belongings from Evidence and packed into Sulu's rental for a drive across town. Even now, with the station far behind them, the man said little. Whether he was thinking or purposefully chose to distance himself, Sulu did not know.

Normally silence suited Hikaru fine but at this juncture, his brain was too wound up with possibilities and he wanted to talk them out.

Unfortunately he was not yet certain if the man next to him could be trusted as implicitly as Sulu had trusted him in the past. Sulu didn't believe that Spock was an example of a good man driven astray by grief. He had always felt that Spock was someone waiting on a trigger to set him off.

It seemed that trigger had come along—or an excuse had.

He started to speak but rejected what he might say for the third time. Flexing his hands on the wheel, he gave his focus to the stretch of highway in front of the car and decided he could be patient for a little while longer.

Agent Spock had always been more perceptive than most. His quiet voice gently broke the silence a few minutes later. "Is there something you wish to say to me, Agent?"

"There are plenty of things," Sulu replied, "but for both our sakes, we should probably focus on business. Do you believe a word of what Pike said back there?"

"I am undecided."

"Some of it I believed. The part about Kirk's uncle, for instance, using the kid as bait."

"The report states that the boy left the campsite after an argument. The uncle searched for the child but did not locate him until after dawn, at which point James Kirk was discovered on the lakeshore in a nearly catatonic state."

"Yeah, that's fishy—especially because no responsible person takes a kid camping out by a crime scene unless it's on purpose."

"That I can agree with. The uncle intended for his nephew to catch the interest of the killer. However, James Kirk did not drown and in the end no perpetrator was caught. Most odd."

"Meaning something probably _was_ accomplished, and no one but Kirk's uncle knows what. We could go ask him," Sulu offered.

"You would suggest we interrogate a city councilman about an incident sixteen years old? I highly doubt he would tolerate that."

"But if he transferred a deputy out of his division for nosing about, then it means he's guilty of something."

"Ah," Spock murmured, "here is where I am undecided."

Sulu cast a glance at Spock. "What do you mean?"

"Consider Pike's position at the time. It is true he was a subordinate to Kirk's uncle—and likely an antagonistic one. But was he not also in love with the man's sister?"

Sulu hadn't picked up on that. "You think so?"

"His involvement in the matter, despite no familial ties, is too personal. He makes it so, and it is clear he considers Winona Kirk's son under his protection. This leads me to believe there was additional motive for Sheriff Davis to remove Christopher Pike from his county, using a tragedy to do so."

"And yet," mused Sulu, "Pike and Winona Kirk still ended up in the same town. I'm not a sentimental man but that sounds like fate to me."

"Or cunning," inserted the other agent.

Sulu laughed. "This is why I have some respect for you, Spock. You discount no possibility."

Spock only replied, "Please lend your attention to the road, Mr. Sulu."

Hikaru did, driven to ask one final question in the process. "Why are we going to Kirk's house? It sounds like he knows the least of anyone."

"That may be true... but there is the fact he would have come face-to-face with the killer."

Sulu was curious. "I'm not disagreeing, but how can you make a mute tell you what he doesn't remember?"

Spock steepled his fingers. "You force him to remember."

"I'm cool with that." He fixed his gaze ahead, waiting a beat. "What about McCoy?"

"Mr. McCoy has proven ineffective in the matter, although we could make use of his services. If offered the return of his voice, Mr. Kirk will be more amenable to our method of investigation."

So they could kill two birds with one stone. Grief hadn't ruined Spock's ability to devise a good plan, at least. He pointed out, just to be certain, "Don't forget what you promised me."

"I assure you I have not."

"Good." Hikaru flipped on the left turn signal. "It's only fair that we both get what we want."

* * *

  
The number on his phone meant trouble. Chris was certain of it. He answered the call anyway. "Hello?"

"Chris!"

Chris's jaw tightened in agitation. He knew he shouldn't have released Decker's mind so soon. The man grew more unstable by the day. Of course, to leave him in stasis could have permanently turned the fool's brain to mush. There wasn't a reason yet to destroy Decker that completely.

He responded to the cheerful tone with an unenthusiastic one of his own. "Is this an emergency, Matt? I'm on duty." He had a thought and added sharply, "Aren't you in the cabin?"

"Sure I am, boss. I wasn't gone long."

A cold sensation slid down Pike's spine. "I told you to stay put!"

"But it was a hunting night—and, boss, _I got 'im!_ "

Pike's dread turned to real fear. "Got who?"

"The bad one, just like I said I would. It was a clean shot."

Pike dropped the phone into his lap and gripped the wheel with both hands. He jerked the SUV over to the side of the road and shoved it into park, then picked up the phone again. 

His voice was as unforgiving as his hold on the phone. "You killed him."

"Kill it? No," Decker corrected, "I didn't kill it. I wanna look it in the eyes when I use my knife." He sounded pleased with himself, as if he were a child asking a parent, _I did good, didn't I?_

Pike ordered, "Wait until I get there, Matt. Don't touch him— _it_ —until I'm there."

"Are you coming now?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

"Okay. You can help me. It'll fight us before the end."

"Just... wait," Pike could only emphasize, and hung up the phone.

He stared down at his traitorous hands. The last time they had shaken like this had been when he helped remove Winona's lifeless body from her car.

She was long gone now. Dead. Jim was... not dead yet. But he would be. Decker would wait, as promised, but only until the second Pike stepped through the cabin door. There would be no convincing the man he had the wrong 'monster'. Pike wasn't certain himself if another monster existed.

But that didn't matter to him. It didn't matter if Jim had killed the woman Pike had loved for decades, or if Jim was killing others.

It couldn't matter because Jim was his son.

He wasn't the son of the young wayfarer he and Winona had befriended one summer, a scruffy, mild-mannered man who called himself George Kirk and who had stolen Winnie from him. No, Jim was the result of a night Pike had let his jealousy during that period drive him to do something awful: to trick Winona into thinking she loved him as much as he loved her.

It was the worst thing he'd ever done in his life. It was unforgivable. He had never trusted himself with her afterwards and let her go back to George. Even when George left her behind months later, once she admitted she was pregnant to her parents and they turned her out, he couldn't trust himself to take care of her.

She hadn't wanted him anyway. Now he knew why.

Somehow knowing what he had done, she had chosen to pretend the child wasn't his because in her eyes Jim needed protection from _him_ , from the monster he was capable of being.

At the time of her confession he'd hated her enough to kill her himself: for lying for years, then for using the truth as a trump card to make him accept that whatever Jim was, it couldn't be all bad. 

" _It's not him, Chris,_ " she had said. " _It's the thing inside him. Help me, please. Help me get it out!_ "

Finding her dead days later had brought him no solace and more questions than answers.

There was one fact that Chris clung to, which kept him on the fence about Jim's guilt and assuaged his own: his son didn't have memories of hurting anyone. Didn't that mean there was a chance Jim could be saved?

Chris straightened up and pushed the vehicle back into drive, making his best time to the secluded area where Decker had Jim. Once he was there, he let his SUV idle at the far end of the driveway and considered his options. There weren't many—and they all had a point-of-no-return.

Decision made, he pulled up towards the cabin, killed the engine and retrieved his gun.

* * *

  
Decker stopped staring down at his prize when he heard the slam of a car door.

Chris was here.

Smiling, he cocked his shotgun.

* * *

  
Chris knocked and let Decker open the door for him. He remembered to say "Good work" before he demanded, "Where is he?"

"It," insisted Decker, stepping back.

Chris swallowed and nodded, his eyes fixed across the room to the figure curled upon the floor. He started in that direction. If it weren't for his years of experience, he wouldn't have reacted at all to the fact that Decker didn't follow him. Stopping short, he turned back to face the other man.

And found Matt's shotgun trained on his chest.

"You don't want it to die," Chris was accused.

"What are you talking about?"

Decker was smiling but there was nothing friendly in his eyes. "I had a suspicion, Christopher. I had a big one, really, because you let me hunt out here but never when the one thing I wanted to catch was around. Aren't I right? You _knew_."

Chris lifted his eyebrows, sending out a tendril of his magic to judge Decker's stability. The result surprised him. "And you knew about me?"

"What, that you've been fucking with my head? Mindfucker." Decker bared his teeth in a caricature of a grin. "Sure I did. How else could you pull it off so neatly, making me _think_ I was always so close to catching it? Truth be told, I don't really hate you for that like I should. Not now. I just want my revenge."

Decker pulled the trigger.

The impact of the shot knocked Pike backwards, the sound of it reverberating throughout the cabin. Chris didn't reach for his own gun, just let himself land on his back. He made the gasp of a dying man. The pain up and down his ribcage was no joke.

Decker bent over him and extricated the gun from the holster on his belt to discard, then walked around him towards the unmoving Kirk, saying, "Don't die too soon. I want you to watch this." 

He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, grateful beyond words that the risk had paid off and Decker hadn't aimed for his head. He was somewhat certain the bullet-proof vest beneath his jacket had held up admirably well at close firing range. There was still wetness on the skin of his left arm, which meant some of the buckshot had gone wide. All in all, he thought he would survive.

But Decker wasn't going to.

Chris waited until Matt tucked the shotgun into the crook of his arm, drew out a large, mean-looking knife and squatted over Kirk. Then Chris rolled over and up onto one knee, and said, "Drop it," taking aim with the small caliber gun he had hidden at the back of his pants.

Matt froze and blinked at him almost stupidly. "Chris?"

"You're right, Matt. I can't let you kill him."

Decker's eyes flashed beneath his ball cap. "Don't do this, boss. I need this. This is my revenge!"

"And that's my boy," Chris replied evenly, taking the headshot.

Decker fell sideways, beside Jim, and didn't get up.

Chris lowered the gun and braced himself with a hand to the ground. The remorse he expected to feel didn't come. The pain from his injury did.

He got somewhat unsteadily to his feet and looked down at his gun still on the floor. Part of him said to pick it up, to wipe away the fingerprints and damning evidence, and another part of him said to leave it. Everything had a price. How long had he been avoiding his?

He went to Jim and knelt down, touching Kirk's neck. There was a pulse. Decker's blood had started to pool under him and within inches of reaching them. He lightly patted the young man's face, calling, "Jim? Jim?"

No response came.

Jim's legs were dirty, scratched, all of him bare. Decker hadn't had the decency to cover him up.

For a split second, Pike thought he couldn't cope but it was the adrenaline rush giving way to shock, he finally convinced himself. He picked Jim up despite the pounding in his ears and protest of his chest and arms and carried the man outside to his vehicle, draping a blanket from an emergency kit over Jim's body once Jim was situated in the back.

Just by moving him, Jim's face had changed from starkly pale to a sweaty sheen, much like Chris's. It implied, Chris thought, that Jim was in serious trouble from whatever Decker had done to him. 

Sixteen years ago, Winona sworn she should have never let her son out of her sight. Now Chris understood what she had meant. Assuming Jim would be safe so long as he was kept in the dark and so long as Chris controlled any potential threats... he had been wrong. While the fault for Jim's accident had not been Winona's (later he had tried to prove it was Frank's), this fault _was_ Chris's. He had not helped Jim at all. Finding Jim in Decker's grasp was evidence of that, and having eliminated Decker wouldn't make up for it. 

Chris felt sluggish as he climbed into the driver's seat. He couldn't take Jim to the hospital, not while Jim's secret could still be exposed. Pike would lose him to execution or worse—a life with a permanent Mark and a chain inside a government experimentation facility. No, if his son had to be stopped, he would rather destroy Jim himself, knowing that Jim would have no time to hate or fear himself for what he was. 

Once again, Christopher Pike considered his options. His hand stopped short of the radio as he hesitated. It withdrew. He pulled out his cell phone instead and dialed a number with a specific person in mind.

The call was picked up on the second ring. "Sir?"

"I need a favor."

Silence. Then, "Officially or unofficially?"

Uhura never minced words. Chris appreciated that. He shifted in his seat, biting down on his tongue against a spike of pain.

"You don't need to suit up," he said after the pain ebbed to a manageable level. "I received a tip on the Fed's partner. I need someone to pick him up."

Her cautious tone changed to something closer to demanding. "Where?"

"I'll text you his last known location." Chris paused, then added, "And, Nyota? I need him in good condition."

She huffed over the line. "It won't be my fault if he runs, sir."

"He won't run," Chris told her with a confidence he didn't feel, "because you'll tell him I sent you. Say it's about Kirk."

Silence occurred again, longer this time. Chris couldn't read anything in his deputy's voice when she finally spoke.

She said, "Fine—but it's my day off and I never work for free."

"Understood."

"Then should we discuss payment?"

"Later. Find him first and bring him to me."

"Who?"

"McCoy," he answered. "Leonard McCoy."

Nyota must have sensed he was about to hang up because she jumped in with "Just tell me one thing. Are the Feds aware of what you're doing?"

"I'm sure they always are," her boss replied, and ended the call.

* * *

  
Sulu had followed his order to circle around the back of the house while Spock waited at the front. No one answered their knocking, and Spock sensed no human movement in the house through the earth beneath his feet. He contemplated the possibility that Kirk was at the warehouse, then dismissed it as unlikely and closed his eyes.

The world was reluctant to speak to him. It always had been. He tried to coax it as his father would have. The stones remained unmoved; the tree roots laughed at him. The dirt sifted itself lazily and settled back into the same pattern.

He thought of his anger and let that turn a gentle coaxing into a painful whip of command. The windows in the house rattled. The vibration hit the front door and warped the frame enough to ruin the lock setting. Spock calmed himself and started up the steps. Somewhere farther along the street, a car alarm had gone off from an errant tremor.

He nudged the door with his foot. It creaked open.

Spock stepped just inside the threshold as a projectile came whistling towards his head. He ducked, and the figurine shattered against the wood of the door.

"My apologies," Spock murmured to the angry spirit of Winona Kirk. "I am seeking your son."

A book came across the room with the intent of braining him. He neatly sidestepped it.

"Do not be alarmed."

A voice at his back wanted to know, "Who are you talking to?"

Spock said, "To the deceased mother."

"Oh." Sulu eyed the living room but didn't enter the house. "I think there was a minor earthquake a minute ago. I didn't know Iowa had them."

Spock saw no need to reply to that observation. He focused on the direction of the kitchen. "Mr. Kirk is not home, which is unusual given that his transportation is."

"I guess we could come back."

"So we could." He locked his hands behind his back and turned to study the younger agent. "There is a van on the street."

"I noticed," replied Sulu quickly. 

"Please investigate."

It seemed Sulu was eager enough about securing a promotion that Spock did not have to order him twice.

* * *

  
Leonard was being followed. His sixth sense, honed through paranoia and plenty of experience in evasion, started nettling him the moment he stepped from the shelter of a convenience store, a fresh pack of cigarettes in one hand. He left the area at a quick, determined pace, skimming the traffic for a taxi along the way.

His phone rang in the middle of his flight. It was Scotty, who sounded excited.

"I think I found something!" he told Leonard.

Leonard stopped walking in order to focus on the call, his attention caught. "What?"

"Do you remember when you said there was a family friend your great-granddad was glad to see the back of?"

"I told you, I checked on her."

"And it was a dead-end, right? Because she went to Charleston."

Leonard finished, "And from Charleston she took a boat and never came back." He waited, and when Scotty didn't say anything else, he asked, "Okay, what am I missing?"

His friend was a burst of exasperation from the other end of the line. "Leonard, you git, she went _overseas._ "

His hope flared then died out quickly as common sense took over. Now he wished he had told the man of his suspicion that Sarek's case had nothing to do with his family curse. "Scotty, I don't think..."

"Shut up, lad, and let me talk."

Leonard obliged him.

"So the woman, Miss Isabella Winters—or Miss Bella, am I right, since your great-granddad called her that?—went to Britian. Believe it or not, the records from the turn-of-the-century are a sight better in the UK than they are here. She was married and widowed within a year and then returned to America under her married name in 1920 and settled in New Orleans. But here's something interesting... there's a death record for her in Arkansas in 1941. She never had any family so everything she had went to the local charity. The town named a library after her."

"Good for them," Leonard murmured. "Listen, Scotty, I still don't think that this gets us anywhere."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a little far-fetched that she brought a waterhorse back from England."

"I told you, a woman scorned is—"

"What about after her death?" Leonard insisted. "Kids still drowned every seven years!"

"Maybe the kelpie had a transfer of ownership. Death caused by—"

But Leonard was shaking his head, unable to believe any of it. If only Sarek was still living! He was the one person who knew for a fact why he had marked those maps and if they had any true connection to Leonard.

Scotty was still talking. Leonard closed his eyes, frustrated. He opened them again in time to catch a reflection in a nearby shop window which turned his blood cold. "Scotty," he said in a low voice, "I'm going to have to call you back."

Scotty quieted immediately. "What is it?"

"I'll call you back," Leonard reiterated. Hesitating, he decided to add, "Thanks, and keep digging." He hung up and tucked the burner phone into his jacket. Too casually, he made for the street intersection up ahead and took the crosswalk to the other side.

His second shadow followed him.

Waiting until a crowd of people came between them, he darted into an alley and pressed into a darkened doorway. The shadow, very feminine in form, paused near the entrance then kept walking.

Leonard waited a full minute before easing out of his hiding spot and retracing his steps, intent on putting as much distance between them as he could. He stepped up to the invisible boundary between alleyway and sidewalk and would have crossed it if an object hadn't pressed into his back.

"I'm not that easy to fool," a voice whispered in his ear. "Don't move unless you want an extra hole in your body."

"Wallet's in my back pocket. Take it. It's yours."

His assailant tsked and drew him backwards into the alley.

"Look," Leonard tried again, "I don't want any trouble. I can't see your face. Just take the money and go."

"This isn't a robbery."

He knew that, of course, but played dumb. "I don't... I don't understand."

When they were out of the public eye, Leonard was turned around. The woman repositioned her gun to point at his gut. He didn't say anything.

She smiled at him in an unpleasant way. "Mr. McCoy, it seems you're a wanted man."

"Who's McCoy?" 

Of all people, how had this particular policewoman found him? And why? He could think of a reason, and he didn't like it.

Maybe his inattention was upsetting to her. One minute Leonard was upright; the next minute he was face down on the grimy pavement, his cheek smarting and one arm twisted behind him, with a knee digging into his spine.

His hair was grabbed from behind and his head lifted up.

"Are you listening to me now?" the woman snarled into his ear.

"Fuck," Leonard shot back. "Did she tell you?"

"Who?"

"Your cousin," Leonard spat to the side. 

The knee in his back suddenly disappeared. He thought that was a good thing until the surprisingly strong policewoman hauled him up and slammed him into the side of a dumpster. 

"How do you know my cousin?" she snarled louder this time, tucking the muzzle of her gun under his chin.

Shit! "I don't," Leonard tried back-pedaling.

Apparently she didn't believe him. The woman forced his chin up and his head back until his neck muscles ached. 

"I'll shoot you," she said. "Right here, you bastard, and I'll walk away from it with a slap on the wrist or a very short period of suspension. And trust me, I think it'll be worth it!"

Anger flared deep in Leonard's gut. "What is this... you and Penda playing games with people?" He ignored the cold metal digging into his throat. "Does she fuck with them, and you cover it up? You're sick, lady—both of you. Hell, maybe your whole fucking family is! I don't know what kind of supernatural shit you people are into, but leave me out of it. Your damn cousin already let me go!"

He was fairly sure for about two seconds she was going to splatter his brains over the alley wall, but then she stepped back and lowered the gun. He couldn't see anything beyond the anger in her eyes so he had no idea what she could be thinking until she said, "Penda picked you up... and let you go?"

Leonard just looked at her.

Frowning, the woman took another step away from him and flicked on the safety on her weapon. She tucked into the band of her pants at her back, then flipped her coat over it to conceal it.

"You're not going to kill me?" Leonard asked, confused. Confusion quickly transformed back into anger. "Then what the hell are you doing!"

She folded her arms. "I'm catching you."

He nearly threw his hands up but instead lifted one to touch the bruised flesh of his throat. "More like assaulting me. Aren't you at least obligated to tell me why I'm under arrest?" After eyeing her clothing, he amended, " _If_ I'm under arrest."

Her mouth tipped up on one side. "Would you like to be?"

Leonard glared at her in response.

As several noisy people passed by the entrance to the alleyway, his attacker looked past the dumpster which partially hid them, her eyes tracking the group. "If you're done whining, we need to move."

What? There was no way in hell he was going anywhere with her! "No thanks," Leonard muttered aloud, the side of the dumpster creaking in relief as he pushed away. "Wherever you're going is somewhere I'm definitely not."

She did not stop him but did twist at the waist to call to his retreating back, "Don't you want to know how I found you, McCoy?"

Leonard stilled but didn't ask.

She answered anyway. "My boss has you tagged."

Her boss...? Oh, he thought, Pike. She meant Pike. He wasn't in the mood for one of Pike's games. "Tell that son-of-a-bitch I've decided I don't want anything he's offering."

"Not even for Kirk's sake?"

His silence tattled on him. The woman closed the distance between them again.

"Who is Kirk?" she asked him.

He looked at her. "Why would you mention him if you don't know his name?"

"Because I was told to." She studied him through narrowed eyes. "But you see, I don't trust half of the things my boss tells me to do so I am asking: who is Kirk? And why were you with that Fed when you're clearly not one yourself?" She took his wrist in hand before he could react and twisted it around to expose the Mark. "Are you a traitor to your own kind?"

"My kind?" He held back a snort. "I'm human, lady. Just because people who aren't magic treat those who are like shit doesn't make the latter less human." He paused significantly before tacking on, "But the same can't be said for the former."

She released him. "I'm not against you."

His smile was thin and bitter. "'Course you aren't. That would be pretty heartless of you since you're like me."

A flash in her eyes, there and gone. But she said evenly, "I'm not magic."

"No," he agreed, having felt nothing of the power in her when they touched, "but you're not ordinary either. There's a little something in your blood that is unusual." At her change in expression, he explained, "Consider it part of my talent, knowing such things."

For a moment, the woman was quiet. Then she said, "I'm not full-blooded like... Penda is."

"Meaning what?" Leonard pressed, suddenly curious. "You don't hunt like she does?"

"I don't have to," she hedged, then more firmly, "I don't want to. It's none of your business, Mr. McCoy."

He almost disagreed but the truth was that she was right. Sticking his hands into his back pockets, he met her eyes. "Frankly that's fine with me. I have the Feds on my ass, and your boss too, so I could do without the attention of anyone or anything else. What did he say about Jim?"

"Kirk?"

"Yeah. What did Pike say?"

"Nothing specific. He seems to think that's all you need to hear to agree to come with me."

"Fool," snorted Leonard.

"Maybe, but the word means a lot to _him_. When Agent Spock—" She stopped talking all of a sudden.

Leonard told her, "I know about Spock. I was in the car with him, remember?"

After a moment she nodded. "Agent Spock used that name as leverage against Pike. I'm sure of it. My partner said they were gone when he arrived at the station this morning."

Oddly, Leonard's chest felt tight. "They?" he repeated.

"Spock and another agent. Apparently he already had back up in town. Bastards," the woman muttered.

Leonard felt betrayed. He knew he shouldn't—it wasn't like he had actually believed in Spock for more than half a second at a time—but the feeling was still there. Why had Spock made it sound like they were on their own? Had Spock intended to string him along into a trap since the beginning? But the man had been so adamant about solving the mystery with Kirk!

Kirk. 

Leonard's train of thought halted on that last word.

It always came back to Kirk, didn't it? Leonard was looking for Kirk, Pike was using Kirk and, hell, so was Spock!

"Does Pike know where the kid is?" he demanded. "I mean, Kirk?"

"I know less than you," the woman admitted. After giving him a long look, she inquired, "Does this mean you'll come?"

"I'm beginning to think I never had a choice," Leonard answered. "So, yeah, let's go."

As he followed her to the end of the alley, he wondered if he was making a mistake. He reasoned with himself since he had already made so many other mistakes, it probably didn't matter.

* * *

  
He had taken a few minutes to stretch his legs; being cooped up in a van could get tedious. Then, while walking back from his aimless stroll, the ground had moved a little and Scotty thought instinctively, _That's not right._

It was even less right that he had somehow missed the entrance of a suited-up government nazi who, with hands locked behind his back, was coming Scotty's way at a placid pace. He had a familiar face.

Three seconds later, when Scotty's brain identified the Fed, he panicked and raced for his van, fumbling for the phone in his pants pocket. It rang once as he jerked open the driver-side door then a second time before his call was picked up.

"Leonard!" he hissed. "Leonard, Code Red, Code—"

The unmistakable click of a gun safety had Scotty freezing in place. He peeled the phone from his ear as he turned around, hearing faintly Leonard's sharp " _Scotty? Scotty!_ " in the background. His thumb dropped to the zero key and he held it down. The phone gave a sizzle and a pop and started to smoke in his hand, having destroyed itself.

The guy in the back of the van with the gun leaned forward and took the smoking phone from him.

"Oops," Scotty said to him, "I think it broke."

"I think it did," his companion agreed and carelessly tossed the ruined device over his shoulder. "And who might you be?"

"Uh, that's my question? What're you doing in Zelda—I mean, my van?"

"Admiring your setup. It's a decent one."

Scotty protested, "Hey, it's a _great_ one!"

"Illegal too. Why don't we have a chat about that?"

"I don't chat with strangers."

The guy smirked at him and flipped open a badge like he had had it at the ready. He introduced himself as Hikaru Sulu, Federal Agent, and also Scotty's would-be arrestor.

Scotty caught a glimpse of the other agent in a side mirror of the van and decided the time for escape was quickly waning. He cleared his throat and said, as politely as possible, "A little help here?"

Sulu's good humor dispersed almost instantly into suspicion.

Scotty pleaded a little louder, "I said, _A little help here?_ " His voice might have cracked.

When the laptop turned itself on to the tune of a cavalry charge (which Scotty had never, ever downloaded in his life), the agent was shocked enough to divide his attention. 

Scotty threw himself back into his seat and screamed, "Go! Go! Go!"

The van came to life without his help, and it went at an ungodly speed. Sulu flew towards the back of the van from the sudden acceleration, and the van spit him out like a child spitting out an unwanted piece of candy. Grabbing the steering wheel, Scotty held onto a slim hope that he was in control of the careening machine and yelled, "Switch back! Keenser, I got it, switch it back!" as he fumbled simultaneously with a seatbelt.

The thing about demons was that while they could be smart, that didn't necessarily mean they had useful skill sets. The van did a tailspin at an intersection, not knowing what to do, and plunged straight into a perfectly trimmed hedgerow. That caused everything to stop, including Scotty, who chest-planted into a deployed airbag.

"Help ma boab," he groaned shakily afterwards, listening to the hiss and spit of a dying engine. "You need drivin' lessons!"

His driver-side door came open on its own.

No, he realized belatedly, not on its own. It was the Fed with the vendetta against McCoy who had pulled at it. 

Scotty stared at him, and the man stared back. He had a feeling they were both equally surprised.

Coughing, he voiced a tentative "Hi?"

* * *

  
Leonard pleaded with his escort to pull over at the next gas station. She—Uhura, as she had named herself—did. Leonard thanked her and rushed off with an excuse to pee. He didn't know why he bothered to lie because she had heard him take Scotty's frantic call.

He called Scotty three times from a men's bathroom stall. Each time the call went to voicemail.

He was about to try again when his pants pocket vibrated. It took him a second to recognize it as Spock's phone, the one he had commandeered and never given back.

He let it ring and tried Scotty again on the burner phone. Spock's phone quit its dance then started up a second time.

Leonard snatched it out of his pocket and answered with a snarl of "Motherfuck, _what?_ "

"Hang up!" Scotty screeched at him.

Stunned, Leonard dropped the burner phone from his other hand. "Scotty?"

But it wasn't Scotty who replied back. "Is that his name?"

Leonard pushed out of the stall, went to the bathroom sink and stared at his reflection. "Spock?"

"Yes. Hello, Leonard."

 _Spock_ , Leonard thought mindlessly. Then, _Spock has Scotty._

His temper flashed. "What's going on?"

"Your friend had an accident."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, it is a fact."

"Did you hurt him?"

"I am not certain but I would conjecture that his automobile is the culprit. It is quite... fascinating."

"Spock," Leonard ground out between his teeth, "this isn't a game. I want you to let him go right now. He's not a part of any of this."

Spock's playfully bland tone changed. "You are in fact correct, Mr. McCoy. None of this is a game. I am with someone of interest to you. You, I believe, are with someone of interest to me. It would behoove us to meet on neutral ground."

Leonard didn't understand. "Quit the riddling, you two-faced bastard. I don't know who you mean."

"Kirk, Mr. McCoy. Bring me Kirk."

"No, I can't do that."

Spock's voice turned cold. "Allow me to remind you—"

"You don't understand," Leonard interrupted him. " _I can't._ He's under the Sheriff's watch."

Silence ensued. In the background, Leonard heard a muffled noise. He feared it was Scotty, trying to say something and being subdued.

Asshole. _Assholes_ , if Spock had reinforcements.

"Thank you for telling me," Spock finally said, as though Leonard had done him a favor in mentioning the sheriff. "However, it changes nothing. Bring Mr. Kirk. Alone. That is all." 

The line went dead.

Leonard drew the phone from his ear and stared at it, almost uncomprehending. Feeling like he was on thin ice, he carefully put it away and left the bathroom.

Pike's deputy was waiting beside her car for his return. Leonard kept his expression clear of his inner turmoil.

"Ready?" she asked him.

He nodded wordlessly and climbed into the car.

* * *

  
The house to which they pulled up was moderately sized, well-preserved, and clean. Leonard had the unsettling feeling of all places Uhura could have taken him, it should not have been to this place. He exited the car with caution.

Christopher Pike opened the front door before they reached it. Leonard bumped into Uhura on his way inside and apologized contritely when she shot him a decidedly suspicious glare.

He looked like shit in Leonard's opinion but Leonard made no comment on it. "What's this about?" he said once they had the privacy of the house walls about them.

Pike didn't seem up to arguing or making a scene. He simply said, "I need you to look at Jim." To Uhura, he ordered, "Sit down." 

She didn't obey but she didn't follow them through the house either.

Pike pushed open a bedroom door and motioned for Leonard to proceed him. From Pike's tone, Leonard had been expecting to find something horrific. All he saw was a sleeping James Kirk under three or four layers of bedcovers.

"He's cold to the touch," Pike murmured from behind him. "I can't get him warm."

Leonard was momentarily taken aback by the nuance of concern. 

"Help him," Pike urged, gaze hardening as he turned to Leonard.

Leonard blinked and went to the bed. Upon closer inspection of Jim's features, he decided, "He looks like shit."

"Can you tell what's wrong with him?" Pike pressed.

Leonard shook his head at the impatience. "Give me a minute." He laid a hand across Kirk's temple and concentrated. "Somebody sedated him," he heard himself say, "but there's something else, something..."

His magic touched a strangeness within Kirk that had him physically recoiling; the sensation was akin to dipping his hand into a cold lake. Leonard sat back and massaged his tingling palm.

The sheriff loomed overhead. "What is it, McCoy?"

"I don't know."

"How long before the sedative wears off?"

Leonard snapped, "I said I don't know! How the hell did he get like this anyway?" When Pike didn't answer, Leonard looked up at him. "You'd better tell me all of it, Sheriff, or I could do him more harm than good."

Pike ran a hand down his face. "I wish I had something to tell you. I think he's been unconscious since last night. I can't be certain. I... don't know what drug was used on him."

Fuck. Leonard braced himself and reached for Kirk again, this time to the center of the chest. The moment their skin connected, he forced away the unpleasantness waiting for him and tried to dive for the remnants of the sedative in Kirk's bloodstream.

It didn't seem very potent after all. Confused, he searched farther, doing a sweep through the internal organs, fixating on the heart and letting it pump him upwards toward the brain. He paused as he passed through the neck but felt nothing amiss.

At last, he drew back. This time his admission of "I don't know" was more puzzling than afraid.

"He should be ready to wake up," Leonard told Pike.

Pike stared down at Jim for a long moment. Then his gaze found McCoy again. "See if you can wake him" is all he said.

"Where are you going?" Leonard wanted to know as the man started to cross the bedroom. "Is this all you wanted me for?"

Pike closed the door on his way out.

Leonard cursed the man's ancestry and returned his attention to Jim. He shook a bare shoulder. "Kid, I need you to get up."

Nothing happened.

"Hey, knucklehead! I know you're aware in there. Wake up! We're in trouble!"

As Leonard hoped, a slow movement began behind Jim's eyelids.

"That's it," he encouraged. "Try a little harder now, Jim."

The eyelids tried to lift. Jim snuffled.

It was like waking a damn princess. Leonard had no intention of playing the part of a prince. He thought, _To hell with it_ , and gave Jim a light slap on the face.

Eyes startled open and stared dazedly at the ceiling. Leonard had a second to think something was off before he heard Pike's voice in the hallway. He unceremoniously hauled Kirk to his feet and ordered, "Walk," like an army sergeant.

Jim obeyed, his feet shuffling against the carpet, half-conscious as he was.

 _Was this kidnapping?_ Leonard wondered as he locked them in the bathroom and then spent a minute cursing at the window as he nearly broke the lock trying to force it open. When he poked his head out of the window, he judged the distance to the ground unlikely to cause injuries. They were on the ground floor, after all. 

The more difficult part came with handling Kirk. Leonard settled for sort of dumping him head-over-heels into the bush below, which caused a very conscious yelp. He swung a leg out just as a knocking occured on the bathroom door. 

"Hold on!" Leonard stalled. "He's puking!" Then he jumped to the ground.

Kidnapping or not, Leonard decided, he was in this mess too deep to back out. Besides, the trade had to be done.

He retrieved the car keys he had pickpocketed off of Uhura earlier and ushered a confused Kirk in boxers out of the bushes and towards her car. 

Leonard thrust Jim into the back, letting the man crumple across the seat, at the same time the front door to the house swung wide and someone shouted his name. He dove for the driver's seat and got them out of the driveway as quickly as he could. Pike came around the side of the house at a run (had he really followed them out the window?), and Uhura bolted down the front steps. She had her gun drawn but did not fire, probably not wanting to shoot out her own tires.

Small favors, really, Leonard told himself, and floored the gas pedal. This time he had no intention of getting caught.

When he was certain he had lost any potential pursuers, he turned out of the maze of the neighborhood and took a highway south. Spock hadn't sent him directions yet but he figured they would come. 

He realized then that there was an eerie silence from the backseat; there had been all along. Not even a sound of scuffling.

Leonard called Jim's name, questioning, "You haven't passed out again, have you?"

In the rearview mirror, Jim sat up.

"Thank God," Leonard said, relieved. "I know this may seem awkward, but I need you to listen to me for a second. I promise I'm not going to hurt you, Jim. I—"

A hand reached around the headrest and covered his mouth and nose. Leonard jerked. He inhaled in surprise but was denied air. Immediately, his hand flew up to grab at Jim's wrist. 

The hand across his face tightened and forced his head back. The face which leaned forward, which caught the rearview mirror and stared back at Leonard, was Jim's. The mismatched eyes were not.

Leonard saw Sarek's killer in the green eye. He didn't know who was left behind in the blue one. Both of them said, _You're going to die._

The car swerved on the road as he let go of the steering wheel to pry the hand off with both of his, and the engine roared as his foot automatically pumped the gas pedal. Horns blared. In his panic, Leonard kept trying to breathe, couldn't and his panic increased. It was a vicious cycle. He grabbed Jim by the side of the head and yanked hard, feeling strands come loose in his fingers.

Nothing budged the monster: not his muted scream, not his fist, not the sliding of their bodies as the car lurched sideways.

Then a ditch was there, meeting them head-on, and Leonard saw nothing else for a long time.


	16. Part Fifteen

"Oh fuck," said Leonard, "I'm dead."

"And this worries you?"

Turning around—if turning around was what ghosts did in a non-corporeal state—Leonard found himself face-to-face with someone he would rather have avoided in the afterlife. But oddly enough it seemed like they had met before.

"So I'm dead and stuck with you. This is great, just great."

The man merely looked at him.

"Not that I mean that sarcastically," Leonard added, feeling somewhat sheepish under Sarek's unrelenting stare.

"Of course you do. However, you should be relieved to know that you are in fact not dead."

Leonard couldn't help sounding hopeful. "I'm not?"

"I believe you are almost dead."

 _Like that's better_. "So why are you here since you _are_ dead?"

"It is easiest to communicate with a person who is dying." For a moment, Sarek paused. "How goes the search?"

Leonard gaped at him. 

"And my son," Sarek pressed. "Tell me of my son."

Snapping his mouth shut, Leonard took a long step backwards (which didn't seem to carry him anywhere) and observed Sarek with all the seriousness of a betrayed individual. "Spock," he nearly spit, "is a self-righteous, psychotic _bastard_. He's the reason I'm like this!"

Sarek hardly reacted. "I am fairly certain he was not the cause of your accident."

"IT'S HIS FAULT!" Leonard roared. "He had my friend, and I wouldn't have had to get Kirk if Spock hadn't demanded..." 

The words trailed off at the thought of Jim. Leonard spun around, searching for him.

"He is not here," Sarek said. "He is too strong to be killed in such a way."

Leonard remembered the flash of mismatched eyes and the strength of Jim's hand, suffocating him while the car weaved on the road. "I don't," he began, then swallowed hard. "What is he?"

"A better question, perhaps: where is he?"

Startled, Leonard turned his gaze back to Sarek. "Where?" He looked around. "He's not here so he's not dead. Or dying, I hope?"

"You misunderstand the question, Leonard. I meant where is James Kirk when he is not himself?"

Leonard drew his eyebrows together and oddly that caused a flash of pain through his head. "You know," he guessed. "You know what Jim is."

"I saw it," Sarek answered rather simply, "before it killed me. Green—"

"—eyes," he finished. Leonard tried to move towards Sarek, feeling a sense of urgency without knowing why. "I saw it too. What is it?"

Sarek said nothing else.

"Why that thing?" he persisted. "I don't understand why— _how_ it's related to my family curse."

"A curse," murmured the dead man. "Was it truly powerful enough to be a curse?"

"Please," he begged Sarek, that increasing sense of urgency creating a tingling like pins-and-needles in his limbs, "tell me!"

"You are fading, Leonard. No, do not be alarmed. That is good. It means you will live."

Leonard flung out an arm, but Sarek was far away now and moving farther. He cried, "No! Sarek, tell me before it's too late!"

"I will say one thing to you, Mr. McCoy, if you can promise me another."

Leonard had to know. He had to know the connection or he was doomed to fail. Didn't Sarek realize that? "Anything!" 

" _Very well._ " Sarek's voice was faint now, and Leonard could no longer see him. " _Think on this: what is the difference between a curse and a wish?_ "

What did that matter? Leonard didn't understand.

" _The curse-maker was not strong once_ ," Leonard heard, not in his ears, in his head, " _but eventually found Power, and Power consumed one, as it consumed another... and as it is now consuming the young man named Jim._ "

He still didn't understand, but he had no voice with which to protest. His mouth would not obey him. His eyes, somehow closed, would not open. But he knew Sarek would not leave him yet, not until a request of the living had been made. 

A fuzzy-headed Leonard clung to the border between sleep and waking, dead and not dead, waiting for those final words, the promise Sarek needed of him. 

At last it came. Leonard strained to hear it. 

Once he did, his eyes flew open.

The return to reality was a jarring experience. It took a moment for Leonard to orient himself. He discovered his body was restrained, his mouth and nose covered; noises were raucous; everything rattled from some kind of turbulence. Leonard felt dirty, stiff, and there was pain, great amounts of pain, hovering just beyond his clouded focus. 

He inhaled. Cold, thick oxygen slid like sludge down the back of his throat.

Someone moved near to adjust his breathing mask and tried to gain his attention with a question or two.

Leonard tried to answer back, saying the only thing which was permanently stuck in his head. He repeated it until the man leaned over to hear him. Then the guy glanced up at someone beyond Leonard's peripheral vision, echoing it: " _Let Spock destroy it?_ What does that mean?"

"Nothing. It's shock," the other person declared.

The man looked back down at him. "Sir? Sir, please try to remain still. You're in an ambulance."

Leonard absorbed that, thinking once more, _oh fuck_. 

Ambulances meant hospitals, and hospitals meant tests—particularly unpleasant tests because there was no way they wouldn't have checked for the Mark on him. It was protocol, after all. The Marked were off-loaded at an Emergency section especially designated for them, where the treatments were usually crappier and the hospital staff a lot less caring. Leonard knew with a cold certainty that once they figured out he was a wanted man, all he would get in the way of treatment would be a pair of handcuffs and maybe a painkiller.

He closed his eyes so no one would see his panic rising, although the spikes of the medical monitor next to him probably gave his reaction away. The pain loomed up to take control of his thoughts, and he told it to back off and contained it. Then he began the systematic cataloging of his injuries. The worst of them—arm, rib cage, and collarbone—his magic honed in on to try to heal as best as it could. By the time they reached the hospital, he figured he would be able-bodied enough to roll himself off the gurney and out of the ambulance. He would catch a cab, come hell or high water.

And wouldn't that surprise everyone?

* * *

  
To the townspeople of Riverside, Pavel was a teenager who had dropped out of school and likely run away from home. In truth, he was nearly twenty-one. He had graduated high school at the age of fifteen, completed a college degree by his seventeenth year, and started on a doctorate. That was before the accident which revealed his gift and before the _politsiya_ killed his family who tried to protect him from being taken.

Now he was in America with a new identity—still Russian in name since he could not disguise his accent. He knew the Russian government would never willingly ask the authorities of this country to look for a budding nuclear physicist with supernatural abilities. Pavel belonged to the Homeland, and they would never share him, even if they only intended to kill him rather than exploit what he could do. 

He would make certain he stayed hidden so their spies could never find him. If he had to waste his youth in this factory town, then so be it. All that mattered was freedom. He would give it up to no one, and for no one.

Often Pavel wondered what his family would make of him now, to see that there existed such ruthless thoughts behind his boyish face. Then he reminded himself that they were dead and could not think of him at all—as he must never think of them.

It was with such a conviction that he set about cleaning his efficiency-sized apartment on his day off, so he could focus on nothing but the mundane part of living. He scoured his kitchen floor until his hands were an angry red; then he washed his work clothes and hung them up to dry. He took down, book by precious book, everything from the single shelf next to his small bed and dusted them and then the shelf itself. He was in the midst of replacing the items when someone knocked on his door.

For a moment, he stilled and simply listened, fingers automatically tightening on the thin paperback, creasing its worn cover. He soon let it go, knowing it would not make a sufficient weapon. Then, as a second knock came, he quietly rose from his floor and picked up the baseball bat he kept near his bed and carried it to the door.

"Hello?" he called, leaning against the door jamb. "Who is it?"

No one answered, but Pavel heard the sounds of breathing and the scuffling of shoes upon the iron-wrought landing of the building stairway.

He traced a finger across the surface of the door to remove an intangible barrier but left the chain lock in place, and carefully pulled back the door just enough to reveal the visitor's face. 

James Kirk stared back through the meager opening.

" _Jim?_ " Pavel said the name with surprise. He shut the door and undid the physical locks.

Jim smiled crookedly at him before stepping across the threshold. There was something off about him, more so than usual. His clothes were too large for his frame as though they didn't belong to him, and his face and hands bore bits of dirt and darker, dried spots which might have been congealed blood.

"Are you all right?" Pavel asked. "What are you doing here?"

He expected to see Jim take out his customary notepad and pen, but instead Jim shrugged carelessly and moved farther into the apartment.

Concerned yet also unnerved by this, Pavel lifted a hand and made a gesture he had seen his mother make many times against someone she considered plagued by restless energy. It had been one of the common superstitions shared by the people of the village where he was born.

He did not know why he made this sign now. Jim Kirk, though an unfortunate, often angry individual, was not someone Pavel feared. He would have dismissed the fancy altogether, for he was no believer in evil other than the actions committed by men, had Jim not turned to face him.

His eyes were lizard green.

"...Jim?"

"Pavel," Jim replied.

"What happened to your eyes?"

Pavel's friend smiled. "Is something wrong with them?"

It struck Pavel, then, what was truly unnatural about his guest, and he backed into the door with a gasp.

"Why are you afraid? I only talk to people I trust," explained Jim before the young man could utter a word. He took a step in Pavel's direction. "You are my friend. You came to my house. I remembered that. You were concerned for me."

Pavel made the sign again, this time with more feeling.

Jim's eyes dropped to Pavel's hand. "Silly," he murmured. 

The face seemed guileless, yet it was not at all like the one he was used to. There was no anger; no hint of aggression which Jim often used to mask his shame.

"Who are you?"

"Jimmy. Jim Kirk."

Pavel could recognize all kinds of invisible lifeforms, and sometimes he convinced them to reveal themselves. He had met Winona Kirk once on a moonless night he had wandered through one of the local graveyards. She had been barely an essence of herself in the way some of the dead find themselves lost and confused if they don't move on. She had insisted on going to the home of her son. Pavel helped her out of respect (he always respected the wishes of the dead), and from then on Jim had become a person of interest to him rather than some reticent co-worker.

Pavel thought about all of this in a short span of time and came to a decision. "If you can speak, then you are a great liar," he said. "This is not a compliment. It takes skill to tell a lie so that even the person who is telling the lie will believe it. The man I know has no such skill. You," he concluded, "are not Jim Kirk."

Jim tucked his hands into his pockets. "Pavel, that's a rude thing to say to a good friend."

"I do not care why you are here. You will leave immediately. Do not return."

The man looked away and _tsk_ ed under his breath. For the first time, Jim sounded strange when he spoke. "I knew you were too smart to be fooled. You're right. I can't speak." Jim's eyes glowed. "This is not my voice."

"I want you to leave," he insisted.

Jim seemed to consider this. "I don't think so. You see, I need your help. Thank you, by the way, for letting me in."

Pavel contemplated the baseball bat still clutched in his right hand. He did not think it would do any good but it was his only defense.

"Pavel," Jim reminded him softly, "you are not paying attention. _Help me_." 

There was power in that voice.

Pavel felt the command tug at him and resisted. "I will not," he said. "You are not Jim Kirk. I will not help you."

"You have no choice." 

Jim reached for him, and Pavel lashed out. The man ducked the swing of the bat and pinned Pavel against the door with unnatural strength.

Pavel reverted to his native language, saying though shocked, " _You cannot force me._ "

Jim sank his fingers into Pavel's short locks of hair and dragged back his head to whisper in his ear. 

The words were almost sibilant. Pavel's eyes closed of their own accord. He could smell the strangest combination of pond water and horse hair. 

So strong, this enchantment, like the siren call of a _rusalka_ who dragged men to their deaths in the river-bed; yet Pavel tried to fight it—had to fight because he had spent his life railing against forces which wanted nothing more than to own him. 

In the end his mind saved him by blanking out.

* * *

  
Leonard got collared the moment he stepped onto the premises but to his surprise the man who collared him wasn't Spock. Shaking off the hand fisted into the back of his shirt, Leonard eyed the fellow and remarked, "You must be the partner."

"And you're late."

Leonard splayed his hands so the guy could get a good look at the dirt and blood on them. Not that the rest of him was in any better condition. He hadn't managed to take care of all the bruises and scrapes because healing his broken bones had sapped most of his energy. He'd fallen asleep in the back of the taxi and had to be shaken awake by an irate driver, then had been summarily dumped on his ass (and spit on too) when he had said he couldn't pay for the ride.

This man at his back didn't seem to care about his appearance. He urged Leonard into motion with a shove of an object in his lower back which felt like the muzzle of a gun.

Leonard huffed out a breath and trod tiredly in the direction of a roof overhanging a porch, thinking about how great it would be to take a drag from a cigarette right then. If not a cigarette, it had to be _something_ : a piece of food or a sip of water. His body was collapsing in on itself; he could feel it. Every step grew more difficult. 

When Leonard stumbled at the top of the porch steps, he was hauled none-too-gently upright.

Of all the places the Feds could have picked for an exchange, he thought, it had to be the perfect setup for a horror movie: an abandoned, old house rotting into the ground, certain to host nature's most unwelcome pests. 

A flutter of darkness caught his eye. To his left, a figure stepped from an open doorway. 

"You are late."

"Jet Li over here already said that."

The agent at Leonard's side stirred. "He came alone, sir. Looks like you were wrong. Should I shoot him now?"

Spock came towards Leonard slowly with a glint in his eyes which Leonard failed to notice until it was too late. One moment they were studying each other, the next Spock's hand was around his throat.

Leonard jerked backwards on instinct but Spock pulled him into place again. The agent's grip was strong, though thankfully not tight enough to deny Leonard his supply of air. Nonetheless, dark spots began to float across his vision.

"Where is Kirk?"

Stomach turning, Leonard made a clumsy attempt to pry off Spock's hand, but the hand only clutched at his throat tighter. 

"Let me go."

"Where is he?"

"Spock," he insisted, " _lemme go_." 

"Mr. McCoy, you lied to me."

"Didn't." Leonard closed his eyes as his stomach muscles contracted painfully. "Gonna throw up," he warned and, seconds later, made good on his word.

Credit had to be given where credit was due. Spock dropped him pretty fast and leapt out of the way just in time to save his shoes. Federal Agent Number Two wasn't so lucky.

After he stopped heaving, Leonard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, spit the bitter taste out of his mouth, and leaned against the porch railing with a groan. He noticed the direction of Spock's stare. "Normally I'd apologize for throwing up on a man, but I'm not feeling very sorry."

The guy whose shoes he had ruined transferred a look of disgust to Leonard. "You son of a bitch!"

Leonard hmphed and wondered if they would force him to stand up again if he sat down. Suddenly a hand at his elbow tugged him away from the railing, and Leonard went reluctantly.

"Do you normally vomit blood?" Spock asked him, guiding him into the house and towards a wooden chair.

The place smelled of mold and animal droppings. Leonard was glad his stomach was already empty, because otherwise he would have thrown up again. "'Course I don't," he grunted as he took a seat. "I also don't nearly die in car crashes on a regular basis."

"I see. And Mr. Kirk? Did he survive?"

"Unfortunately," Leonard replied, looking up at Spock. "He's the reason we crashed."

"Explain."

Leonard opened his mouth to do just that but remembered (God, how could he forget!) the reason he was there—and it wasn't to play nice with Spock. "Scotty," he said, and started to get up.

Spock pressed him back into the chair, glanced over his shoulder and ordered, "Bring him."

The man wiping at his footwear in the doorway didn't rush off to obey. In fact, as he straightened up and flung a now-soiled handkerchief off the porch, he gave them an indolent stare.

"Agent, I do not care to repeat myself."

The man caught Leonard's eyes, said slowly "Yes, sir" before walking away.

Leonard said, "Well, he's not worth whatever you're paying him," and paused. "Think he'll shoot me for puking on his shoes?"

"He may be contemplating it."

Leonard slumped down and rubbed at the tense muscle between his shoulder and neck. "I'm fuckin' pissed at you, Spock. You didn't have to go as far as choking me to let me know you were upset."

"I thought you had reneged on our deal."

"Deal?" Leonard muttered, then laughed bitterly. "Some deal. You forced me into this, you bastard." He lowered his tone, hoping to sound more menacing. "If I find out you've laid a hand on my friend..."

"Please," interrupted the man, "threats are unnecessary. Also," he added, eyeing Leonard's pallor, "you do not seem to be in the proper condition to carry them out. I assume you avoided the hospital."

"Yeah, I baled before EMTs could dope me up and roll me through the emergency doors." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Good news is I'm not dying—at the moment—so let's discuss what's more important here."

"Jim."

"Exactly, _Jim_ ," Leonard stressed. "And mainly the fact that he isn't Jim."

"If he is not Jim Kirk, then who is he?"

" _Oh, why didn't they bloody ask that before?_ " was the loud complaint which preceded the man trudging up the porch steps.

Leonard abandoned his chair with a relieved cry. He didn't make it to the door, though, because Spock caught his arm, stalling the reunion with Scotty. That was when Leonard remembered all over again why he had good reason not to trust Spock. He shook off the hand on his arm and gave the Fed his fiercest glare.

Scotty took one look at Leonard and said, "Whoa, what happened to you?"

"Car landed in a ditch." Leonard started to say more but then he saw the way the shadow behind Scotty was listening with interest to their conversation, and caution silenced whatever else he might have said.

Scotty, on the other hand, didn't seem to care about the listening ears. "I had a wee bit o' an accident myself." Then he twisted around, unmindful of his hands bound in front of him, to stare at his escort. "By the way, did you get her out of the bushes?"

"Her?"

"Zelda." Scotty beamed. "My van."

Leonard flushed with second-hand embarrassment. Finally it occurred to him what Scotty was actually saying. "So that means..." He resisted the urge to cut his eyes at either agent. "Zelda's out of commission?"

Some of Scotty's amusement fled. "Aye," he agreed, "until we get her back."

 _Damn_ , Leonard thought. They could have used Keenser. But the demon was no good to them wherever he currently was. 

Leonard did look at Spock then, thinking that there was no way he could convince the man to take them back to Scotty's van when an idea occurred to him. "If you want to know what Kirk is," he said, "we have something we can show you."

"Why can't you just tell us?" cut in the other guy before Spock could open his mouth.

Leonard crossed his arms, shifting his attention. "I don't think you've introduced me to your buddy yet, Spock. It seems at least proper to know the name of the a-hole pointing a gun at my head."

The man wasn't actually pointing his gun at Leonard but now he looked like he was considering it. "You're pretty at ease insulting the authorities, aren't you, McCoy?"

"See," Leonard complained to Spock, "he knows my name!"

Spock moved to stand at equal distance between them. "Mr. McCoy, this is Agent Sulu. I would not recommend that you antagonize him further. He is one of the best precision shooters at our agency."

"Lovely," muttered McCoy. "So is this you backstabbing me, Spock? I can't say I'm surprised, but I did hold out a little hope if I kept my end of the bargain, you'd keep yours."

"And what of Mr. Scott?" countered Spock, his dark eyes pinning Leonard's. "Am I to believe his presence here is happenstance?"

"Wait wait wait," Scotty began at the same time Sulu declared smugly, "I knew it."

Leonard winced, having forgotten to tread carefully where Scotty was concerned. And as he feared, his friend exploded: 

" _Have ye gone mad, Leonard?_ You're working with a FED?"

"Scotty..."

"The same Fed, might I add, who wants to hang you until dead!" 

"He said he didn't want to kill me."

"And you _believed_ him?" Scotty made a disgusted noise and threw his cuffed hands into the air.

Leonard turned on Spock and demanded, "Give me the key."

Spock blinked.

"The key to his handcuffs, you idiot!"

"No."

" _Yes_ ," he insisted. "You will because I'm not helping you catch Kirk otherwise, and that's beside the fact that I can't catch Kirk without Scotty."

"I do not trust you."

"What a shocker. I don't trust you either."

"Then explain to me what you believe we will gain from Mr. Kirk."

"Your father's killer," Leonard answered promptly.

Spock started forward, and Leonard had immediate cause to regret his words when the man misunderstood and said, "James Kirk killed my father?"

"No!" Leonard denied at the same time Scotty piped up, "Probably."

Spock stilled and looked between them, as if he could not decide which answer to believe.

"I mean," Scotty went on to explain, "I've been thinking about it. It's likely that the spirit is the reason Leonard is here, and Leonard's here because your dad sent him—or would've, you know, if he hadn't died. It adds up."

There was an elusive memory Leonard couldn't quite get a hold of but he recognized the certainty which accompanied it. "I think you're right. Sarek was... Sarek _was_ killed by that thing." He bit into his bottom lip, recalling the color of one of Jim's eyes.

"'That thing'," Spock echoed softly. "Are you saying that James Kirk is possessed by a supernatural?"

"Not exactly."

"It's complicated," added Scotty, "but we've got a video that might help explain."

"Where?"

"Where else?" responded Sulu, tone dry. "It would have to be in the van." He held Spock's gaze for a moment, until Spock nodded. Then Sulu tucked his gun out of sight, retrieved a key from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and removed Scotty's handcuffs.

Leonard went to his friend's side and inspected his wrists for damage. "How badly did they hurt you?"

"I expected worse." Scotty leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. "Are you really okay with this?"

By which he meant Spock, Leonard understood. "Do I have a choice?"

But Scotty said, to Leonard's surprise, "Yes you do." The message in his eyes read _Just hold on 'til we get to the van._

Leonard nodded, released Scotty, and backed up. He felt eyes on his back but didn't turn to meet them. "All right, first things first. There's something you need to know: Kirk may be on the loose, but we won't be the only ones looking for him."

"Pike," Spock guessed.

"Yeah, fucking Sheriff Pike." Leonard glanced Spock's way. "And don't tell me you'll 'handle it'. I'm pretty certain when he thinks Kirk is in danger, he shoots first and asks questions later." _God knows why_ , he wondered. At one point the man had claimed Jim might be a murderer.

Unfortunately it looked like that guess was partly right.

 _Damn it, Jim,_ , Leonard thought. _How are we going to save you?_

Realizing belatedly that Spock had come to stand beside him, Leonard saw that there was something the man wanted to say and waited.

"Before we proceed, I have a question."

"You want to know if I'm going to get in your way—if I'll try to stop you from killing Kirk."

"I would not ask a question when its answer is obvious. You will preserve life even if it poses a threat to your own. While your ethics may be commendable, I promise you it will not stop me."

"Great. So what's the question?"

"Do you believe James Kirk is aware of his actions?"

Leonard looked away. "Does it matter, when you intend to destroy him?"

There was a moment of silence between them. 

Then Spock admitted, "You are correct. It will not matter."

* * *

  
Uhura radioed in with news of the wreck and its missing victims. McCoy, they knew, was alive as he had been taken to the hospital by ambulance only to slip away at the last second; but the whereabouts of Jim Kirk remained unknown.

"What's our next move, boss?" Nyota had asked.

Chris honestly did not know. He didn't know why Leonard had seen fit to kidnap Kirk, and he didn't know where they had been going. He also didn't know what caused their accident. Other motorists reported that the car had been all over the road before it ended up sideways in a ditch. That seemed to imply the driver had lost control of the wheel... but why?

Ultimately Chris's gut told him something he didn't like, and so he felt he was at a crossroads: did he pursue Kirk in order to rescue him or did he have to stop him?

Regardless, he couldn't sound the alarm on Jim—not yet. With their limited options, it seemed the best they could do was stake-out the one place Pike figured Jim would sooner or later have to return to.

So he told his deputy "Head to Kirk's" and hoped he could trust her with his son's life. Before he could join her, he first had to make a pit stop at the station to prepare for the worst.

* * *

  
Someone had stuck an orange cone near the back end of the van to warn sidewalk traffic to go around the obstruction. Leonard could imagine the owner of the bushes which the van had trashed was very pissed. He was surprised Zelda hadn't been towed away.

"Think Keenser's okay?" Scotty murmured for Leonard's ears only as Sulu pulled to the street curb to park.

"He's a demon, Scotty."

"Oh, right."

It didn't shock Leonard in the least when Scotty still hopped out of the car before they had come to a complete stop.

"Is he running away?" Sulu asked almost idly, hands still on the steering wheel.

"No," Leonard answered. "He's just weird."

Spock exited the front of the car without a word and opened Leonard's door. Leonard doubted he did it out of politeness. They eyed each other warily before setting off towards the van with matching strides.

"Mr. Scott refused to explain why his vehicle propelled itself off the road."

"Because it didn't have GPS?"

"Your joke is inappropriate."

Leonard muttered, "You think everything's inappropriate."

"I want an explanation."

"And I want to kick you in the balls. I guess neither of us is going to get what we want today."

Spock cut a glance at him that clearly said _try me_.

A whoop came from inside the van. Leonard pushed ahead.

"Hey, what's—FUCK!" he shouted, just as he stepped up to the door that was ajar and it unexpectedly leaped forward to meet him.

"Oops," his friend apologized, leaning in. "Didn't see you."

Leonard cursed and put a hand to the sore spot on his forehead. 

"I meant to get the Fed," Scotty stage-whispered.

Next to Leonard, Spock lifted an eyebrow. "Please move away from the doors before you cause another accident, Mr. Scott."

Scotty scuttled to the other side of the van with a mutter and began digging through a tangle of cables.

Spock's eyes had more of a frown than his mouth when Leonard removed his hand and there was still a red mark emblazoned upon his forehead.

"Don't have the energy to expend to fix it right now," he said with a shrug.

"That may prove troublesome for us later."

"Why? Are you intending to hurt somebody you shouldn't?"

But Spock didn't respond to the sarcastic bite and instead lifted himself into the van. "Where is your evidence, Mr. Scott?"

"Hold on, hold on, it's a bloody mess in here. I think someone tried to break in... stupid neighborhood punks... don't they know this shit is expensive?"

"That's why they'd want to steal it, Scotty."

"Ha! Like they could, when I got me wee lad Ke—"

Leonard's sudden loud coughing fit reminded his talkative friend to shut the hell up. Keenser was their way out of this mess in a pinch, but he couldn't help them if Spock had an inkling of the demonic presence hiding in the van.

That reminded Leonard of something and he poked Spock in the side. "Hey, I just realized we don't need a tow truck. Can't you move us outta here?"

The glare Spock leveled at him should have been able to disintegrate flesh.

Scotty stopped rummaging through his belongings, curiosity piqued. "What does that mean?"

Leonard grinned. "Spock can—"

Spock clamped a hand around the back of his neck and warned him in a low hiss, "If you value your life, you will cease to speak."

"Oh, I get it," Scotty said, "he's like his dad!"

Spock turned to stare at Scotty.

"Hey, I didn't say a word," Leonard pointed out. "He's just really smart."

" _Very_ smart," Scotty emphasized. To Leonard, he said, "Now I get why you're confused."

"Huh?"

"Why you've been acting friendly with a Fed."

" _We are not friends!_ " Leonard and Spock protested simultaneously.

"At first I thought your nob's been fried," the man went on to say, ignoring them, "but I guess you figure he's got as much to lose as you do."

"I doubt that," Leonard said bitterly.

"Well think of it this way, Leonard: since his father's dead, Mr. Spock here doesn't have anything left to lose. That makes him pretty pitiful, actually."

Leonard really hadn't thought of Spock's situation in quite that light. He had been too concerned with his own guilt over Sarek's death. "...Yeah, that makes sense."

"Aw, you bleeding heart you," Scotty said fondly.

"That is enough," Spock said in warning to the both of them.

A shadow spoke up from the doorway, where it had been quietly watching them the entire time. "Not that this heart-to-heart isn't touching, but you should know we have company."

Spock instantly fixated on that. "Who?" he demanded of Sulu.

"Your arresting officer."

Spock made as if to leave.

"Wait," Leonard stopped him, a hand to his arm. "Now's not the time to have a pissing contest. More to the point," he added in a softer tone, "if she sees you, then Pike will know we're here. It'll be a fight then."

"I am not afraid of Christopher Pike."

"I am," he shot back, thinking of all that the sheriff could do to them. "Look, Spock... We want Kirk, and they want Kirk. The kid's damned wily so let's just see who gets him first."

Sulu lent his support. "I hate to say it, but I'm with McCoy on this, sir. The cop's staked out closer to the house. I doubt she spotted me."

Spock finally seemed to relent, even though he said nothing about agreeing with them. His attention returned to Scotty who, just in the nick of time, lifted his laptop into the air for all to see. 

"I promise you're going to want to see this!" he swore to the agents, booting up his equipment.

* * *

  
"No sign of the eagle yet," Nyota reported in, "but we've got a couple of lame ducks."

Through the phone, her boss made a sputtering sound then swore sharply in several different languages, which actually wasn't an unusual thing.

"Chris?"

"Damn you, Nyota, that cup of coffee was expensive and so were my pants!"

She resisted the urge to laugh. "Glad you appreciated my joke."

"Remind me to put down my thoughts on your humor at your next performance evaluation. Which ducks?"

"I only saw one, but this particular breed travels in pairs."

"Shit. McCoy could be with them."

"And Kirk could be with McCoy?"

"No," Pike replied after a moment. "I think you would know if he was."

That piqued her curiosity. "How would I know?"

"Just... call me back if things get weird. And _don't_ under any circumstances put yourself in the middle of it. Is that clear, Uhura? You're eyes and ears only."

"What's your ETA?"

"Twenty, twenty-five minutes. Now I said, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Pike hung up, and Nyota tucked her cell phone away, wondering exactly what kind of shitstorm the man was expecting to occur.

* * *

  
Scotty waved his hand in a smug manner at the laptop screen. "That, gentlemen, is James Tiberius Kirk."

"It's a blob," Sulu said.

"It's a white horse," corrected Leonard.

"Fascinating."

Sulu swapped his gun from hand to hand. "No. No fucking way is that a horse."

Leonard nearly stomped on the exasperating man's foot. "Would you stop arguing with me? Spock!"

"Fascinating," Spock said again. "Though I must admit I see no resemblance to a horse."

"Well you wouldn't," explained their most knowledgeable companion. "See, what Leonard means is that we have a prime example of a manifestation of a waterhorse—probably from England," he tacked on.

Sulu's look of disbelief didn't budge. "I thought you said Kirk wasn't possessed."

"I said it's complicated!" Scotty countered. "Possession is like... having a live-in roommate. A really bad one."

" _Oh god_ ," muttered Leonard, bracing his head in one hand. This was going to be fantastic.

"Manifestation is so much more. It's when the entity, spirit, whatever, depends on its host for survival. It's not just draining the host's energy and manipulating his body, thereby in the process turning him into a person who spouts pea soup or chows down on five-inch nails, whom we'd just lock up in a padded room as a crazy lunatic."

"Focus, Scotty," Leonard urged him.

"Fine, fine. The creature—I like to use the term _beastie_ , 'cause horse, you know—the beastie is literally transforming a human shell into a supernatural so it can survive. Here's what I know about the process..." Scotty started sketching symbols in the air in his excitement. "There's _this_ world, and then there's other worlds superimposed on ours. Or maybe the other way around. I'm not sure. Anyway the barrier between them is called, or I have heard called from a science-y buddy of mine who is a complete idiot by the way—the Veil. At some points on earth, the Veil is thin enough that it's not as difficult to cross over... like moving through a really soupy fog instead of pushing through plasma."

"Next you'll be telling me about the Fairies."

Spock and Leonard shushed Sulu.

Scotty said, "There might be Fairies, but now I won't tell you about them because you obviously don't deserve to know."

"Tell them about the aliens," Leonard said instead, amused.

"No," Sulu said too quickly. "Table the aliens for tomorrow's lecture. What were you saying about a veil?"

"Veil, capitalized," sniffed the storyteller. "There are probably cases where people go over and don't come back, but the ones who come to our side... well, we don't have ghost stories for nothing, right?"

"To summarize, the beastie comes from the other side," Leonard said.

Scotty nodded. "But this is Here and not There, so basically it's a lot less powerful than it otherwise would be. It can use magic, sure, but not as easily as the humans who are born with the ability to harness the magic which exists on this side of the Veil." Scotty paused and met Leonard's eyes. "The exception to this being if it manifests."

"I don't really know as much as Scotty here, but I do know that there's a give-and-take to it. This thing didn't just show up in Iowa. Somebody brought it." Leonard turned his gaze to Spock. "You said you traced the drownings back to the '20s. We think we figured out whose responsible for that."

"But she died in the 1940s," Scotty added.

"Which means it had to change hosts at that point."

Spock tilted his head in a thoughtful manner. "The drownings stopped after a period of time. If the same entity exists in Kirk, then it has been manifesting in him since the day he nearly drowned."

"That's the real question, isn't it?" mused Leonard. "I don't know why it would want to jump to a kid."

"Perhaps it had no choice. Perhaps," Spock continued to say, "someone offered to sacrifice a young boy to become its next host."

Sulu muttered a word under his breath but Leonard didn't catch what it was.

"But we've got a bigger problem," Scotty interrupted. "Clearly said beastie has not been feeding. If there's any reason it's making a big fuss now, it's because Kirk isn't doing what it wants."

"I don't think Jim knows what he is or isn't doing."

"Which is worse," Scotty agreed. "Will it eat Kirk up and start drowning kids again, or will it jump to a new host?"

Suddenly Leonard didn't like this conversation at all. He sank back on his haunches and rubbed at his forehead, listening to Spock pick up the new direction of speculations and run with it.

Didn't any of them realize if Jim was still alive, so to speak, that they had an obligation to help him?

He figured no one did, and began to wonder if he ought to change his own thinking.


	17. Part Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Make certain you've read Part Fifteen first!

Pavel woke to find that he was on the floor of a room he did not immediately recognize. As he oriented himself, he became aware that the tiny hairs along his arms were standing up, and his breath clouded in front of him.

He blinked, rolled to the side, and came face-to-face with Winona.

"Pavel," she said, "are you hurt?"

This wasn't right, this wasn't... He sat up, realizing he was in the Kirk house.

"How did I get here?" His accent always grew heavy when he was upset.

Winona sat cross-legged next to him, her form thin but still faintly colorful to Pavel's eyes, like clothes which were faded from too many washings. "Jim brought you home. I don't know why... he's never done that before."

"That's not—" Pavel stopped himself in time. He didn't want to upset this poor spirit. She loved her son, and he was a monster. "Where is he?"

"Downstairs. Pavel, he never uses these rooms. He never... I don't understand what he's doing. Why would he bring you here?" She flickered in and out for a moment because her growing emotions made her unstable. "Maybe you should leave. My son wouldn't hurt you but..."

"Okay," he agreed, and stood up, going to the closed door on somewhat wobbly legs. 

When he opened it, Jim was on the other side. Pavel backed into the room, past Winona to the far wall, losing color in his face.

Jim's vividly blue gaze floated from Pavel to various corners of the room. "Is she here?" he asked.

Winona gasped.

"You need to go," Pavel told her, suddenly understanding why he had been brought here. "You need to go _now_."

But her face showed how happy she was. "He can speak!" she cried. "My boy... I haven't heard his voice in so long!"

Jim used Pavel's gaze as a point of reference and spoke to the air. "Hello, Mother."

She went towards him. Pavel made a strangled noise.

"Jimmy," Winona said over and over.

The light in the room changed, then. So did Kirk's eyes.

Winona stopped in the middle of the room, hand lifted to touch him, despite that she was no more than a mere whisper of a being. "Jimmy? Jimmy?"

"Recognize me?" Jim said to the woman. "You should have stayed buried. Pavel, I will forgive you for bringing this nuisance here as long as you take her away again. Refuse, and you can join her in the Void."

Winona's expression changed from horror to outrage. " _No!_ " she screamed.

Pavel ducked streaks of angry energy and wrapped his arms over his head. Around him, a supernatural wind rose, shrieking and howling.

Jim simply laughed.

* * *

  
Leonard gave Sulu a measured look and asked, "Got one?"

"Smoking isn't healthy for you," Sulu replied in a monotone not unlike Spock's. When Leonard snorted, the man smirked and fished inside his jacket for the cigarettes he was suspected of having. Tapping one out of the pack, he offered it with the curious inquiry "I don't smell like the habit, do I?"

"Thanks, and no. You just seem like the kind of guy who lights one up in a tight spot."

"You would be surprised how the simple act of smoking makes an effective impression on bad guys."

"Yeah? Like in the movies?"

"Exactly like in the movies," the man chuckled.

Leonard stuck the cigarette in his mouth. Spock stopped watching Scotty mess about with the laptop in order to shoot him a look that said he would gladly crush more than the cigarette if Leonard started smoking in his vicinity. Rolling his eyes, Leonard scooted to the door and jimmied it open, stepping down to the pavement outside.

"Hey!" called Sulu, who also tossed him a lighter. "Stay close."

Leonard nodded, rolling the cigarette to the corner of his mouth as he circled around the van. Dappled afternoon light stretched along the length of the sidewalk as he set a quick pace. He flicked a flame into life with the lighter and, as he bent his head to light the cigarette, down the street movement in one of the windows of Kirk's house caught his eye. He decided it must be the cat. Leonard didn't think Jim would be stupid enough to come back here.

He shivered, for it seemed like the light of the sun had suddenly gone thin.

At the end of the nearest driveway was a crooked mailbox with its lid ajar. Leonard passed it and paced back a block to come at the house from a less noticeable angle in case Uhura was still on a stake-out. He cast frequent glances around him but saw no other living thing. 

Crossing into Kirk's weed-choked backyard, the sweetness of the summer air dissipated and was replaced by something thick and foul. In a graveyard, it would have been the smell of the dead. That gave Leonard pause, because what was the dead doing here? He considered all that he saw and noticed the odd way that the neighboring trees grew right up to the fence but none of their branches grew over it. 

If he asked Spock to touch this ground with his magic, what would the earth say to him? Had they missed some important sign all along?

Leonard abandoned his reverie as the gauzy curtain in the second-story window began to flutter like a fan was blowing on it.

The kitchen door was unlocked when he tested the knob. That too was odd, he thought. Suffering only a moment's hesitation, Leonard entered the house. The farther inside he went, the air grew thicker, more oppressive with every step, and colder as well. A queer sensation started in Leonard's chest, like a tickling.

He called out in a quiet voice for Winona Kirk.

There came a crash from the floor above his head. As Leonard climbed the stairs, he heard a muffled howling, like a train passing through. It directed him unerringly down the hall. He reached a door and flung it open.

Jim Kirk was standing right in the center of the room, and Pavel Chekov was crouched in a corner.

Leonard saw an outline of hands, no more solid than mist, around Jim's throat. Jim was grinning.

Then he turned his head, spied Leonard, and waved his hand languidly in that direction. A force of air rushed right at Leonard then _through him_. It was so bitingly cold that he gasped and nearly sank to his knees. The door at his back slammed shut by an invisible hand. 

"So glad you could make it," Jim said to him. "I was cleaning house."

All Leonard could do was gape and say his name stupidly.

The young man across the room uncoiled and started to move in Leonard's direction.

Jim shook his head in mock sadness. "Such a disappointment, Pavel." Then he murmured something. Black lines appeared on the walls and snaked across their surfaces, forming a pattern of knobs and whorls that seemed familiar to Leonard. When they reached the floor, they began to transverse it like an army of ants.

Too late Leonard realized they were targeting Pavel, and Pavel began to scream as the dark magic crawled under his skin.

* * *

  
Well, hadn't that been interesting?

Sulu had gone out to retrieve McCoy from a smoke break on his senior's orders and come back empty-handed. Spock had vacated the van in the blink of an eye, like losing Leonard was a serious thing. Now both of the agents were supposedly on a manhunt for Kirk and McCoy.

"I guess that makes us chopped liver," Scotty muttered, then cried out in pain. Pulling his hand back from a sizzling circuit, he blew on his injured fingers. "Blast it, Keenser! Stop mucking about! No, I'm not sorry I left you."

The van rocked a little. 

Scotty slapped its side in irritation. "You daft bastard, we don't have time for this!"

The back door popped open.

At first Scotty thought the demon was about to give him the boot into the street, but then a woman stuck her head inside.

"Ooh pretty," he noted.

She climbed in but stayed crouched by the door. 

Scotty's laptop awakened from sleep mode and began to croon " _Who's that lady?/Beautiful lady/Lovely lady/Real fine lady/Hear me calling out to you..._ ".

"Shut that off."

Scotty slammed the lid down without needing to be told twice. "Hey, sorry, that wasn't me!"

Her beautifully shaped eyes narrowed.

Scotty tried to salvage the situation. "Not that sexy women aren't welcome in my van—I mean it's nice to meet you!—but, uh," he winced, "this isn't the best time for a flirt, lass."

He had definitely said the wrong thing, he thought, when she pulled out a Beretta and aimed it at his head. 

"Say one more insulting thing and I will shut you up permanently. Now, tell me where Jim Kirk is."

Scotty deflated. "Why's everyone so fixated on that guy? All right, all right," he amended when the woman cocked the gun, "I get it! Kirk is... is not in this van obviously. He might be in his house? Have you tried his house? See, the thing about mysterious guys is that they tend to hide in the most—"

"Why are you rambling?"

Scotty, now tracking the motion of one of his tennis shoes which was levitating behind her head, widened his eyes. "No reason!"

She started to turn around, and the shoe struck her. The Beretta went off, a bullet whizzing too closely by Scotty's head for his liking. 

"Jeeesus!" he exclaimed as he ducked. "What have I told you about hitting people with guns in small spaces!"

He felt really bad when the lady flattened herself against the interior of the van and looked around somewhat wildly.

"Sorry," he apologized, meaning it. "That was my demon."

He really should have expected it, he would think later, when she lashed out and nailed him in the gut with her boot.

* * *

  
A part of Leonard said to leave Pavel writhing on the ground and run for the hills. Another part of him, which must be the tiny bit of compassion he still possessed, had him at Pavel's side before he could think better of it. The creepy magical swirls on the floor slid away from him instead of attacking him.

Still in the center of the room, Jim crossed his arms and looked on.

Leonard propped Pavel up and inspected his skin where veins of blackness were pulsing close to the surface. Trying to combat it with his magic made him sick to his stomach, but he pursued the foreign agent as it burrowed down into Pavel's body.

He was vaguely aware that Pavel was babbling at him. Something about Jim who was not Jim. Well, Leonard understood that easily enough.

"What'd you do?" he accused Kirk.

"Just a little punishment for his misdeeds."

Somehow it wasn't surprising to hear Kirk answer.

Pavel's nose began to bleed.

"Stop it, you sick bastard! He's just a kid!"

"Is he?" questioned Jim. "Hm."

Leonard cursed under his breath and grabbed Pavel's jaw. "This is going to be uncomfortable," he told the young man, and then gathered what energy he could to fling at the invasive magic, channeling it to rush like a wild river so it would drag what didn't belong in Pavel along.

Pavel clawed at Leonard's hand as he began to gurgle. Leonard released him after a moment so the poor kid could double over and vomit, patting his back to help him. The black splatters left burn marks on the floor.

"Impressive," Jim said. "I knew you could do it." He smiled like he was truly pleased too.

When Pavel sat up, having finally expelled everything, his eyes were watering. He said something short and sharp in Russian to Jim. It was undoubtedly crude.

Jim's eyes crinkled at the corners.

Leonard wasn't a stupid man. He knew he was outnumbered by simply looking into those cool green eyes. He hauled Pavel to his feet and pushed him towards the door, saying, "Get out of here, kid."

"Don't leave me," Jim said. "I want to play."

"You're not Jim," Leonard told him, "and not that I give two fucks about Kirk, but I certainly don't like _you_."

Pavel, the little fool, hadn't made a run for it while Leonard tried to provide a distraction. "Where is Jim?"

Jim cocked his head. "Oh, somewhere."

"Give him back."

"Oh hell, kid," Leonard said, and physically grabbed Pavel around the waist. "Poking at the bad spirit is _not_ a good idea. C'mon."

"We must help Jim!"

"Sure, sure, not arguing the point." Damn it to hell, why was the door knob stuck? He stopped himself from pounding on the door like an idiot and considered their other options. While jumping from the second story was a terrible idea, he bet he could make enough ruckus to bring Spock running.

Pavel didn't argue when they started inching towards the window.

Jim turned in a circle as he followed their progress but he didn't stop them.

Leonard moved aside the dusty curtain and peered down into the yard. Sulu glanced up and looked startled to see him at the window. 

Pavel nearly pressed his nose to the glass trying to see too. "Who is that? He looks like Government."

"Where the hell is Spock?" Leonard muttered to himself.

As if the name was a summoning, there came a polite knock on the bedroom door.

Jim's eyes flashed.

Leonard yelled, "Come in!"

Spock, it seemed, had no trouble opening the door from the other side. 

Leonard was immeasurably glad to see him, and he also decided he would die before he ever admitted it.

"Hello, Mr. Kirk," Spock said with the utmost civility.

"Mr. Spock," Jim returned with equal measure.

"I would like to ask you a question."

"Did I kill your father, the tracker?" Jim smiled. "Why yes I did."

"Thank you for telling me that," the agent replied, sounding no more perturbed than as if they were discussing the weather.

"Uh-oh," Leonard said. He made certain he had a firm grip on Pavel. "When I say 'run', run." No sooner had he spoken than the frame of the house began to vibrate with a growing intensity.

Jim let his palms fall open. "You don't have the Power to take me," he said to Spock.

"I do not need to destroy you. Trapping you permanently in that body will suffice."

And the roof came crashing down, literally.

"RUN!" Leonard shouted as he and Pavel dodged a beam.

* * *

  
Sulu had seen some crazy shit in his life. He had, but now he understood there was more crazy shit he had missed out on by simply being blind.

He had felt this vibration from the earth before, just yesterday in fact. The only common denominator was his fellow agent, Mr. Spock. How funny, that the straightest arrow of them all was actually a grenade. He didn't imagine Spock's career was going to survive a revelation like this.

In terms of his own ambition, that was not good—unless Spock could be useful to the system like his father.

Hikaru considered the debt he owed Sarek and if that fit into one of the shades of his honor. His father had been the most corrupt of businessmen, and sometimes Sulu saw himself following the same path. It was difficult not to, when it got him what he wanted.

But there was still the sibling Spock's father had recovered for his family.

Indecisive about his next plan of action, Hikaru watched the spider web of cracks forming at the house's foundation; they spread out and upwards at an alarming rate.

It would, of course, solve the problem if Spock died on duty.

Remembering what really mattered to him, Sulu sighed, took his gun from his holster, and went for the door. 

While Spock could die today, McCoy couldn't.

* * *

  
There was no point in being delicate on the stairs because the damn steps starting crumbling when they were halfway down. They ended up jumping part of the way to the first floor and hit the ground with a jarring thump.

Leonard spared a second's thought for Winona in the shaking house but it wasn't like he could see her anyway. 

"Come on!" he yelled to Pavel over the crashing of various furniture and dragged him to the closest door. It was just their luck that that side of the house fell away right before they touched it.

Leonard heard a bellow from the direction of the still-intact kitchen, then another one, this time distinguishable as "MCCOY!"

Sulu appeared in a doorway, then disappeared in a cloud of white dust as a nearby wall cracked in half.

They ran in that direction, and Leonard shoved Pavel straight into Sulu's chest, shouting, "Get him out!"

Sulu made a face but maybe it was Pavel's wide-eyed fright which spurred him to obey. The two men went ahead of McCoy for the back door. Leonard felt a moment of relief when the three of them cleared it and practically tumbled down the brick steps.

Sulu had his arm in the next instant and was dragging him, not Pavel, to the safety of the other side of the yard. When the agent's left hand drew out a pair of handcuffs, Leonard knew he had made a terrible mistake. So he did the only thing he could: he punched the guy in the face. 

They would have started a tussle right there in the backyard if the house's shadow hadn't made a sudden drastic shift.

"Oh shit," Sulu said as the remaining walls of the structure started to topple in their direction. He let go of Leonard and ran like hell.

Leonard was on his heels until the backlash of the impact knocked him over. 

Then he couldn't see. The world felt like it was in motion: winds battering, magics fighting, earth screaming. He was suffocating from the very air. 

The vortex wasn't simply physical. Spock had unleashed some kind of unholy hell that couldn't be satisfied with the mere ripping up of a structure by its foundation. Leonard dug his hands into the soil, looking for roots, anything, to keep him grounded as power rushed under, around and through him. When things no eye could see started nipping at his hands and heels, he didn't know if he would survive. Maybe all along Spock had intended for him to die beside the real murderer.

Then all at once the attack stopped like the snapping of a chain. Left with a harsh echo in his ears, Leonard forced himself to let go of the earth and rolled onto his back.

"Goddamn," he said to the dusty sky.

There was a pile of rubble where the Kirk house had stood. The ground of the yard, front as well as back, was black and barren; the trees on every edge of the lot leaned away as if they could not bear contact with the clearing. 

Leonard wondered if Spock was alive. He spit out the dirt in his mouth and climbed unsteadily to his feet. Should he look? Part of him didn't want to. _Just be damned grateful you're alive!_ it said.

He wiped at his face and started towards the least dangerous-looking side of the ruined house. His mistake, he learned later, was not considering who else might have survived.

The strike came out of nowhere, hitting Leonard from behind. He was air-borne for few seconds and hit the ground with a thud. 

A knee planted itself in Leonard's stomach, belonging to Jim, who leaned down until they were nearly nose-to-nose. The energy surrounding the man spoke with such force and malice that it was a kind of constant shrieking in Leonard's brain.

Jim's body looked a little battered and a little broken, but the blaze of his unearthly eyes wasn't diminished in the least. 

One look and that was all Leonard needed to stop thinking of it as Jim.

"Let's make a deal," it said.

Leonard coughed as the knee pressed a little deeper into his stomach. "No way."

"A life for a life."

Oh crap, that sounded bad. "What, mine for his? I said _no._ "

"Foolish," the thing breathed in his face. "So short-sighted." Then it leaned down and spoke in Leonard's ear. "Your daughter's life. Isn't that worth any price?"

Leonard closed his eyes, his heart suddenly hammering in his chest, unable to stop listening but not able to answer either.

"Yes, you would do anything to save her. In return..."

"No," he whispered, "I can't let you take him."

It pulled back and smiled softly at him—a parody, considering the cruelty in its eyes. "But I can have you, Leonard. That is my price. Your body, to carry me, to feed me, willingly until the end of your days."

"Why me?"

"Human bodies are fragile, weak. An Other's power withers them much too quickly. But you have a rare gift. I recognized it the moment we met. If I had not, I would have destroyed you as I did the tracker." It stroked a finger down Leonard's cheek. "I will let this one go, and I will give you the power you need to keep your precious child alive. Is that not a fair deal?"

With control of Leonard's body and his magic, it meant it would make itself stronger. How long would this thing survive by using Leonard's ability to self-heal? He shuddered to think of the consequences.

He also couldn't help but think of Joanna.

"I..."

"Why hesitate? Take what you want!" he was urged.

Leonard pressed his mouth flat and thought, _God help me but this may be the only way._

Somehow it knew Leonard was on the verge of giving in.

" _Jim!_ "

Leonard squeezed his eyes shut and made a half-laugh, half-whimper. Of course, he thought. Of fuckin' course!

The man climbing around the wreckage of the Kirk house was none other than Christopher Pike and, by the sound of it, the thing playacting as Jim Kirk was going to have to postpone his plans to steal Leonard until after he was subject to a serious ass-kicking.

For once, Leonard wanted Pike to win.

"Jim," Pike started, then stopped as he came abreast of them. 

Leonard turned his head to look. _Aw shit_ , he thought, seeing the pain in the older man's face, _he really cares about the kid._

Caring about Jim didn't keep Pike from aiming his firearm at Jim's head.

" _Poor Daddy_ ," Kirk said in a snide voice. "Wanna talk to him?"

"Jim, I know you're in there."

"Then why can't you reach him?" it taunted. "Go on... try _harder_."

Leonard could see that Pike was sweating from the effort, and he felt a pang of pity for the man.

Pike's voice wavered but his gun hand did not. "Jim, son... don't make me do this. If you can fight, FIGHT! You've done nothing wrong!"

Jim's body sat back on its haunches and frowned.

Leonard felt a small thrill when he saw that one of the eyes was blue again. He urged Pike, "Whatever you're doin', keep doing it! It's working!"

Pike took a step forward. "I know you're not gone, Jim, because I can feel you."

Jim shook his head like a dog, then said, "How touching. _Stop it._ "

"Listen to me! He's not all you, and you're not all him," the man insisted. "Fight it!" he cried when Jim grabbed his head and keened.

Pike lowered his gun a fraction, then an inch, and dropped to a knee in the soft dirt. "Jimmy?"

The keening ceased so suddenly that Leonard had a moment for the bottom to drop out of his stomach in fear. Then Jim was on Pike with a shrill laughing cry because the man had made a mistake of coming within arm's reach. Leonard watched in horror as fingers which were more claw-like than human sank into the exposed flesh of Pike's throat. Pike gave a garbled cry of his own, but somehow still made Jim struggle to pin him.

In the next second Leonard heard the crack of a gun being fired.

At the far edge of the yard stood Uhura, her gun at the ready for a second shot. Jim reeled back, hands bloody, to look at his stomach.

Leonard didn't think. He grabbed the opportunity and knocked Kirk over. Running on instinct alone, he positioned his hands on either side of Jim's head and whispered a single word.

_Stop._

Everything came to a halt, or perhaps the world around him simply quit registering on his senses. Noise fell away, pain and guilt ceased to matter, there was no such thing as time. As if he had plunged his hands into a well of energy, he felt tendrils rising up his arms, strong but icy cold. Whether it was his own magic or that which festered inside Jim, he did not know.

 _Stop_ , he commanded again.

Jim went limp.

Leonard let him go and, shaking, crawled over to Pike. There was too much blood to tell where the wound on the man's neck began and ended. Leonard touched him with the intention of starting the healing—

—but Pike's hand stalled him.

_Don't._

_What?_ Leonard replied, incredulous, not caring that they weren't speaking out loud. _You can't be serious, man! You're going to die!_

_If I live... what would I be living for?_

_Shut it, you maudlin old man, and give up some other day!_

Leonard wasn't given to forcing his magic on anyone but the less yapping he did with this stupid bastard, he figured the better. Pike must have sensed his determination because he gave in with a mental sigh and didn't push back.

Being somewhat of a bastard in his own right, Leonard ignored the warning signs of expending too much of himself and used a burst of his dwindling energy to knock Pike out for a few minutes. It would make the man ornery as hell, but Leonard decided the arrest would be worth it.

He didn't realize he had attracted attention until a figure shifted in his peripheral vision. It was a stunned Pavel, looking as dirt-covered as Leonard felt. 

Only Pavel was not staring at Leonard. His gaze was fixed near Jim. "I can see it," he whispered.

Leonard, not understanding, turned back to the first person he had somewhat unwittingly knocked into an unconscious state. He grabbed the back of Jim's head and tilted it up, laying his palm flat against the pale skin of the throat.

To his surprise, he felt nothing: no pulse, no energy, no monster either. Jim Kirk was dead.

But... 

But that wasn't possible! How could Jim have died? What had happened? 

It was panic which scattered his thoughts. He must be babbling out loud because someone knelt beside him, said his name with concern.

Leonard pressed his fingers into the side of Jim's neck, not realizing how he trembled until he saw his own hand. "What did I do?"

"Mr. McCoy— _Leonard_ —focus."

Leonard swung his head around to stare at the man in the tattered suit jacket in horror. "Spock... he's dead."

"Then save him," Spock said.

Something snapped in Leonard at seeing that neutral expression. "Damn you," he yelled, "if I could, don't you think I would! I couldn't even save your father!" 

Spock pulled Leonard's hand from the neck and repositioned it above Jim's heart. Then he looked beyond Leonard, saying, "Mr. Chekov, come here."

Pavel didn't move. It was Sulu, who had also reappeared, that took the young man by the elbow and steered him closer to them.

"What do you see?" Spock asked.

Leonard saw the fear in Pavel's eyes and thought he understood. "No one's going to hurt you," he tried to sound reassuring. "In fact, after this is all over, we're going to forget you exist—aren't we, Spock?"

Spock cocked an eyebrow.

"Swear it," Leonard demanded.

"I have no ill intentions towards Mr. Chekov. Contrary to belief, the Agency does not have the resources to investigate every unusual individual. I am at present only authorized to pursue someone who is a danger to the public."

 _Authorized, my ass_ , thought Leonard. He doubted there was anything sanctioned about Spock's agenda. There was no need to say that in front of the kid, however. 

"Pavel, please," he begged, "help us."

Pavel's gaze dropped to Jim's white face. "There is still time," he said, if somewhat reluctantly. "I can see it now... the bad thing... but Jim hasn't departed."

That was all Leonard needed to hear. He gave his concentration to Kirk, to the heart that had stopped beating and the lungs empty of air. He felt the faintest sparks from the brain, which as Pavel implied had not yet suffered complete death.

But he didn't know what to do to bring Jim back. He could use magic to give his energy to the body but the body would not have a reaction to it.

"Spock, I can't help him like this. Can't you shock him or something?" _Shit_ , where was an ambulance when they needed one?

Spock closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and shook his head. "Negative. I am nearly drained. But given that he has flatlined shocking him is likely to be ineffectual."

"Goddamn it!" Leonard cursed and switched his position beside Kirk, placing one hand on top of the other. He started CPR, wishing he had never given up on the idea of medical school. He didn't even know if he was doing it right.

He must not have been because Spock shouldered him aside and took over with the authority of someone who remembered his medical training. Leonard tried to focus on recognizing a heartbeat.

"I also doubt this will revive him," Spock said while he continued to pump Kirk's chest. "We need to consider other options."

"Well fucking tell me one! I can't think of any!"

"What did you do to stop his heart?"

"Do? I don't know, I just... _fuck_." He sucked in a breath as a realization hit him. "I told it to stop!" He grabbed Jim's head in the same way he had before, rambling, "Damn it, kid, that wasn't what I meant! I wasn't talking to you!"

He tried to find any shred of Jim that he could, tried to find _something_ so he could undo whatever it was that he had done. What he needed was the memory of life, the subtlest resonance, and he could restore it.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it," he kept cursing. "Don't die on me!"

Spock continued a measured alternation between massaging the heart and filling the lungs with air. 

Leonard felt pinpricks at the corners of his eyes and thought, _If anyone should die, it should be me._

And suddenly he knew the price to be paid to bring Jim Kirk back.

 _Help me_ , he thought to that wildness which belonged to no one. The connection to it was sluggish at first but grew stronger as it realized what he meant: it could take everything. Leonard would offer all that he was, all that he had—and the magic of the world was greedy for such a sacrifice.

It took his breath, his bone, his blood. It took every sorrow and joy he had felt since birth. It took his senses and his mind, and kept taking and taking until in one world the body of Leonard Horatio McCoy collapsed beside a blue-eyed man and in another, the faces of those who loved him brightened to welcome him home.

...It was just his luck, of course, that some great big fool came stumbling into his moment of death and screwed it all up.


	18. Epilogue

"What happened next?"

Leonard reached out and adjusted the blanket that Joanna kept pushing at with her hands. "What'd you mean, what happened next?" He pretended to be offended. "I saved his life!"

The child sneaked a glance over Leonard's shoulder then started fiddling with her hospital covers again. "Did _you_ get hurt?" she asked.

His girl was a little too perceptive sometimes. "Do I look hurt, munchkin?"

Her eyes skimmed his face and at last she shook her head. 

Leonard smiled and tweaked her nose. "Your old papa is fine—except, of course, that now he's got no more adventure stories to tell you! Not that that matters," he said. "It's bedtime."

Joanna protested.

"Darlin', you can't fool me."

"But I'm not sleepy!"

He tucked her hands under the blanket and smoothed it down over her arms. "It's okay, Jo. I know you're tired. Go to sleep."

Her eyelids started to droop but in the next second shot open again. "I don't wanna."

And he knew why. Leonard leaned down to kiss her cheek and whisper in her ear, "The sooner you rest those eyes, the sooner you can see me again."

"You won't leave?" she whispered back.

"No, I won't," he promised her, and that seemed to be enough for Joanna.

She closed her eyes. Leonard turned down the lights in the room and watched her for a long time. When he was certain she had actually drifted off, he went to the man slumped in a chair in the corner and poked his shoulder. "C'mon, cafeteria break," he said, and nodded towards the door. 

The guy trundled after him as they moved down the corridor of the pediatric unit.

Leonard was thinking about how he wished the first-floor coffee shop kept late hours when he ran into his father exiting the elevator.

"Len," his dad greeted, before staring at the man behind him. "I see your friend's still around."

"Can't get rid of him," Leonard complained. "I've tried, believe me." He said to his shadow, "Jim, you remember my father."

Jim Kirk nodded, looking much too grave.

"We're headed to the cafeteria," Leonard explained. "I need caffeine."

"You need sleep."

"No can do, old man. I've slept enough for a lifetime." He eyed his father suspiciously. "It's late. Why are you here anyway?"

David McCoy held up a paper bag. "Mazie said this here is your dinner, and she's expectin' you both back at the house by ten to get some decent rest in a decent bed."

Leonard sighed softly as he took the proffered bag. "She's such a marionette."

"Go on home, Len. I'll stay the night."

But Leonard shook his head. "You've done more than your share already, Dad. Besides I... I just want to sit here with her awhile. I was gone too long."

David clasped his son's arm. "You're here now, and that's what's important."

Leonard had to resist the strong urge to hug the man. He said instead, "Jim'll go with you. That ought to placate Mazie a bit." Leonard handed Jim the bag, then pushed the silent man towards his father. 

"I guess the boy will have to do. Come along, then," Leonard's father ordered as he turned back to face the elevator door and pushed the Down button.

Clutching the bag, Jim's expression was trapped somewhere between bewildered and panicked. He had been subject to Mazie's mothering before, and apparently it had left a lasting impression.

Amused, Leonard caught Jim's eye and mouthed _good luck, kid_.

By the time Jim parted his lips, the elevator had dinged and he was being hauled backwards into it by the elder McCoy.

Leonard turned away and, in that moment, remembered after many, many months of hardship, fear, and guilt how it felt to laugh.

* * *

  
He had meant to die. It was as simple as that.

Like the white horse had claimed, a life could be traded for a life. Leonard had offered himself in order to help Jim Kirk return to the living. He hadn't considered his ill daughter, still faithfully waiting for his return, or those who might have taken offense to his sacrifice. He hadn't thought of anything at all beyond finding a way to counteract his terrible deed. And so he died, the light in his eyes fading even as Jim's brightened. It caused a ruckus among the bystanders but he was too far-gone to care. He was transversing a long tunnel, the place where one world stopped and another one began.

Then something strange happened: a figure blocked his path and said, "Bad." 

Leonard was surprised enough to stop and respond, "What?"

With a child's height and a manner that was no better, it hissed again, "Bad. _Bad human._ "

Leonard didn't feel very human just then, so he shrugged without arguing and kept going.

But it refused to let him alone, following at his heels and taunting, "Bad, bad, bad!"

Leonard sped up but couldn't seem to shake the damn thing.

"Bad human, baaaaaaaad."

Finally Leonard stopped again and snarled back, "So what! So what if I'm a bad human, you fugly little—" It dawned on him just who was dogging his steps. "—Keenser?"

Keenser hopped up and down at the mentioning of his name and pointed a recriminating finger at Leonard. "Bad human and bad friend!"

"What are you even doing here?"

"Stupid human die."

"Yeah, Jim, but I don't... wait." He thought about it. He thought hard, then looked towards the end of the tunnel. "Oh hell," he concluded. "I'm the dead one, aren't I?"

"Very dead."

"You're not good at comforting people, I can tell." Leonard hesitated and asked, more to himself than anyone else, "I guess it's over for me?"

But once again it was Keenser who had a different opinion. "Not yet," it said and veered off into the darkness at the tunnel's edge.

Leonard had a moment to wonder if following a demon was a smart thing to do. Then he decided he wasn't likely to have another chance to do something other than quietly slipping off to the afterlife. Maybe he would end up like Winona; or maybe he would find himself in a place far worse than death.

But did that really matter?

Did it, when Keenser was right about his selfless yet very selfish choice?

Keenser's hissing came out of the dark, a warning for the human to get his ass into gear. 

Leonard did, plunging into the darkness after him and into a shadow world beyond it.

* * *

  
"Did it die?" Leonard's daughter asked him the next morning.

She had woken, been delighted to see her father still at her bedside, and promptly bombarded him with the questions she hadn't thought of the day before.

Leonard considered this particular question with a comically thoughtful face which made the little girl giggle. Then he cleared his throat and answered somewhat truthfully: "There's something about the supernatural, Jo, that a lot of people don't figure out until much too late."

She pulled a stuffed toy off her small nightstand, tucked it beneath her arm, and gave her father a very serious nod. "They can't die."

"That's right. They can be stopped, they can be contained, and they can be removed from the world but we can't make them cease to exist."

"Like magic."

His mouth thinned into a smile. "Like that, sweetheart. A lot like that, actually." In fact, he wondered why it had taken him so long to see the parallel. 

No... he didn't wonder, he _knew_ why. Hatred made a man blind to many truths.

"Grandpa says you wish you weren't different..." Joanna tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. "...but I think it's okay to be different. I don't want you to be un-different, Daddy."

Leonard glanced down at his hands, turned them over and inspected them. "I might not be different anymore, Jo," he confessed.

"Is it because of the bad thing?"

"Yes," he answered, deciding that was a little bit true. He would never tell her about dying, or about coming back. He would never tell anyone except those who had experienced it with him. In truth, he didn't think he _could_ explain it if he tried. It had been too surreal, and even now seemed more like a dream than a certainty.

The man gripped his knees and stopped himself from going down that path. There were more important things to focus on at present, the main one being the child who watched him so closely. He was glad to be at her side again.

And he was more than glad that he wasn't as useless to her as he had once been.

* * *

  
In the shadow world, Leonard McCoy met Winona Kirk.

Initially he thought it was some kind of trick. Then she hugged him and said, almost disapprovingly, "You've been stupid."

"So everyone keeps telling me."

Winona tugged him through a murky grey mist until they were standing over a small sun. It wasn't actually a sun, he came to realize quickly. It was her son, Jim Kirk.

"Weird," muttered the man.

"Not really," Jim's mother replied. "He's always been bright. You saved him. Thank you."

"What about you?" Leonard asked. "Are you all right?"

"I'm no different than I have been." Her eyes searched his face. "Leonard, will you go back?"

He shook his head. "I don't think I can."

"Look down" was all she said.

He did and frowned. "What is that?"

"A light. A hope."

"What's it doing in my chest?"

Winona smiled at him. "They're trying to keep you with them. So, yes, you can go back." She hesitated. "If you do, will you help him understand?"

"You mean Jim."

"He never hurt me, Leonard. Tell him that until he believes it."

"What about you?" he asked again.

"I'm okay now," the woman said, and without another word disappeared.

Leonard looked around for Keenser but couldn't find him either. There was a voice he heard, though, and when the mist parted he saw it belonged to Pavel Chekov.

"McCoy!" the young man cried, eyes wide.

Leonard was confused. "You can see me?" 

Pavel started to recede a little. "No! Mr. McCoy, can you hear me? Come here, come here!"

Leonard went after him, until a long distance suddenly became tiny indeed and Pavel was right upon him—who then seemed very fierce despite his adolescent face.

"You will come back now! The Government is very angry. He—yes, he says he did not give you permission to die."

Leonard hmphed. "No deal."

"No...? Oh, I understand." Pavel said to someone else that stood like a blur of color to the right, "He wants to make a deal."

Leonard sputtered.

Pavel returned his attention to Leonard. "Okay. Here is deal as told to me: no... jail? Good. I like this already... and retraction on your arrest warrant."

If Leonard could have laughed, he would have; but he also thought that he ought to take advantage of the situation, however ludicrous it was. "That's not good enough. I want a cleared name, a clean record and paternal rights to my kid."

Pavel relayed this message quickly, and then spat something in a flurry of Russian. To Leonard, he eventually gave the verdict. 

"Government says he does not know why he is going to this trouble for you. He also says it is very bad form to blackmail a federal agent when the federal agent is attempting to save your life. That last part I personally do not agree with, of course."

"I'm with you on that one, kid." Leonard gathered his courage. "Okay, what should I do?"

"It is simple," Pavel said. "This, I can do. Take my hand."

Leonard saw him extend it and in turn extended his own. 

Pavel was true to his word. He was, Leonard started to understand, somebody who could actually bring back the dead.

And so waking up inside an ambulance was déjà-vu; finding a crowd of faces around Leonard whom he recognized, less so. Jim, he noticed before blacking out, sat in a corner beneath a blanket looking positively stunned.

Leonard could empathize with him.

* * *

  
It seemed strange at first that Jim had a desire to come with Leonard to the hospital on a nearly daily basis. Leonard figured this had to do with the fact that Jim insisted he owed Leonard for saving his life, which was a stupid idea in itself. Then Leonard began to think Jim was just paranoid about losing all that he had regained—the ability to speak and his humanity—and somehow believed that sticking close to Leonard would keep him safe.

But that turned out to be wrong too. In the end, Leonard simply decided Jim had an unfathomable reason for trailing behind him. 

That didn't stop his father from asking, "Why's he here?" to which Leonard had replied honestly that he didn't know. Then, when David McCoy had pressed, "Why haven't you done something about it?", Leonard had just stared a little too blankly, unable to think of a good response. Oddly his father never brought the matter up again, perhaps realizing a heart of the matter which Leonard was oblivious to.

Leonard only knew that Jim had his good days and his bad days. Today was quickly turning into one of the bad days, and Leonard frankly didn't have the patience to prod the man out of his pensive state. It was plenty for him to keep Joanna company in between minutes of prying progress reports out of the tight-lipped hospital staff. They didn't know why the treatments were miraculously working, and for some reason that made them antsy. Leonard just wanted to know if she was going to be alright but no one would offer him that much hope—yet, at least. He knew something they didn't, of course, and so he kept quiet about a hope of his own—and the small hex bag of Bella Winters' bones he had unearthed from an Arkansas grave on his way home. Someone had told him once that a person who cursed ill fortune on another person wasn't the same as someone who wished for it, the difference being that latter had tenuous control until the next spell came along. Leonard had never been good at spells but he knew plenty who were.

But none of that was anyone's damn business anyway, except for his family's.

Leonard had come back from just such a teeth-pulling conversation with Clay Treadway to find Joanna drawing alone. 

"Where'd Jim get off to?" he asked, because there was an unspoken agreement between him and Kirk that if Leonard went off to wrangle the doctors, Jim stayed behind to keep an eye on Joanna.

Suddenly he was furiously mad.

Joanna must have seen the flash of anger in his face because she said, "It's not his fault, Daddy. I think he heard something bad."

How did she know that? "Did he tell you something?"

She hunched a little and made a noncommittal noise. "Mr. Jim's not so good with his words."

He snorted. That was the understatement of the century.

"He's upset, is all," the little girl insisted. "Don't be mean to Mr. Jim."

"Okay, okay... but you shouldn't be on his side anyway, baby girl. I'm your father, and he's just... Mr. Jim," he relented. Damn. "I guess I'll have to find him now. Will you be okay for a minute, Jo?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'll tell the nurse to check in on you."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not a baby."

He touched the edge of the cap which covered the fuzz that marked the return of her hair. "I know. You're a lot braver than I ever was at your age."

She cut her eyes at him then put down her colorful marker and folded her drawing, handing it to him. "This is for Mr. Jim. Don't look at it! He has to look at it first!"

With a wry expression, Leonard tucked the paper away in his pocket. "Joanna, you don't like Mr. Jim, do you?"

Her face lit up.

"Never mind," Leonard said hurriedly because, god no, the last thing he could handle was Joanna having a crush on the weird, bullheaded stranger who had invited himself into Leonard's car and subsequently forced Leonard to endure listening to a cat yowling in a pet carrier for the duration of a trip south to Mississippi.

It was true, he thought. Jim owed him his soul for that fuckin' awful ride.

Jim wasn't in the cafeteria or the coffee shop; he wasn't lurking in the breezeway between buildings or inside the Pediatrics playroom playing checkers with some of the young patients.

Leonard did finally locate him in the small park across the street. It brought back memories, walking across the strip of grass, seeing the bench he had shared with his father once upon a time. The park was nearly empty that late in the day, and cast in pale golds and oranges. Leonard unthinkingly paused to lay a hand upon the bark of a tree and, for a moment, was stunned to learn that he could still hear the faint whispering of a dryad.

He went to Jim, who was standing silently under the canopy of two trees with intermingling branches. His head was bent as his sneaker toed at a pile of fallen leaves.

Leonard almost spoke, almost, but then he had the impression Jim already knew he was there. So he waited patiently for the kid to say what was on his mind.

Jim half-turned towards him, a second later. "D-Drownings," he bit out the word roughly, as a person did who was still re-learning how to speak. "Minnesota. Last week."

Leonard sucked in a breath.

"Four kids," Jim continued. 

"Young?"

"Yeah."

"Jesus." 

Jim turned to look at him fully, then, the shade of the trees and sunlight warring on his face.

"It's not your fault," said Leonard. "You know that, don't you?"

"Not so sure, Bones."

"What do you want to do?"

Jim made a face.

"Do you want to go after it? You've got a life now, Jim—a real one, not whatever fucked up existence that thing forced on you. You have a chance to live free, and believe me there are a lot of people who can't say the same."

"Like you?"

"Hell yes, like me! I may not be what I was, but I've still got this—" He flashed the Mark. "—and it will always be there. So I'll ask you again: are you sure you could give it up?"

Jim glanced away.

When the man didn't reply, Leonard huffed, exasperated. "Jim... I'm trying to save us a lot of pain here. If you go, then I'm gonna have to go too—"

"Bones."

"—and what are we, really? We ain't specialists at this kind of thing! I mean, I know there's Scotty and god knows, it's bad enough that he's converted poor Chekov to the dark side."

"Bones," Jim said again, this time amused. "Shut up."

"Why?" Leonard said.

Jim just shook his head, a hint of a smile quirking his lips.

Leonard had a bad feeling. He really did. But that could have been the park's doing because it suddenly had a little extra charge of energy, like a reaction to an incoming wave of magic.

Leonard's bad feeling turned into a bad suspicion. He closed his eyes, just briefly, and thought at the earth, _What are you?_

The answer made his eyes pop open and caused him to turn around.

"No," he denied, spying the thin figure eating up the distance between them with a long-legged stride. "Oh _no_."

"Sorry, Bones."

"There's no way in _hell_ —are you outta your mind, Jim!"

Jim's eyes crinkled at the corners. "J-Just hear him out."

"If he comes near me, I'll gut him!"

"He said... he can f-fly us first-class."

"I'll string him up by his pointy aristocratic nose!"

It seemed all of the ranting in the world wasn't going to make a difference: Jim moved in to pat his shoulder pityingly, the spirits in the trees started tittering in welcome of the earth magic, and Spock's hawk-eyed stare had them pinned.

Leonard didn't know whether to run or curse his luck. In lieu of both, he pulled the first thing to hand out of his pocket and threw it in the agent's direction. The paper made a pathetic projectile, however (in addition to giving him a serious paper cut); it floated to the ground to lie innocuously in the sun.

Leonard stared down at his daughter's drawing in disbelief.

Jim leaned over and squinted at it. "Cool," he murmured. "You look funny."

And Leonard did: as a stick-figure with spiky brown hair clearly in the middle of a rage over something. Next to him was a yellow-haired stick figure loosely portraying Jim which wore, of all things, a cape; on the other side of Leonard was a stick man with an angled hat who was as tall as the green squiggly trees near them and who also had an enormous nose sticking out to the side.

 _Mr. Jim_ , Joanna had written across the top, _and His Friends_.

Jim picked up the drawing and folded it neatly, tucking it out of sight.

"I give up," Leonard sighed.

"Good," Jim replied, and moved forward to meet Spock.

Leonard hung back for a moment, rubbing his thumb against the thin cut on his finger in irritation as the prim-and-proper agent held a low conversation with Jim. Because his pain disappeared in almost an instant, Leonard looked down in surprise. The paper cut was gone.

Magic, it seemed, had found its way back to him.

 

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some headcanon things I didn't mention...  
> \- Sulu is the one who called Spock about the Minnesota drownings since he's 'in charge' of that region  
> \- Pike survives but is tried for the murder of Matt Decker and still somehow mysteriously disappears (although I'm guessing he keeps in close contact with Jim)  
> \- Uhura figures out the underground network of hunters and becomes one herself, which isn't easy given her family  
> \- Scotty is gleefully cruising around in Zelda with Chekov riding shotgun and Keenser blasting rock songs on the radio  
>  
> 
> But I'm not going to write that because there'd be no end to this story otherwise. That's it. Thanks for following along!


End file.
